Estimation of Health Costs of Electricity Production in Iran

Abstract

By supplying energy for many activities, electricity is one of the most important drivers of industrial development. But, electricity industry is one of the largest producers of polluting gases due to combustion of fossil fuels. This has raised serious concerns about the externalities of pollutant emissions in power generation processes. This paper aims at modeling and estimating the health effects and costs of electricity generation in thermal power plants in Iran based on the Impact Pathway Approach using SimPacts software. Based on our results, the health costs of electricity generation in Iran in year 2014 are more than 110 trillion Rials, which accounts for about 1 percent of GDP in this year. Also, the research results show that combined cycle and gas turbine power plants respectively impose the lowest and highest social health costs per kilowatt-hour of electricity generation. Ultimately, by modifying the fuel mix and only using natural gas as the fuel for power plants, the health costs of electricity generation will be reduced by more than 53 percent.

Keywords

• externalities of power generation
• health costs
• pollutant emission
• impact pathway approach
• fuel mix reform