MAPNA Group’s President has underscored the need to enhance cooperation and interaction between universities and industries to solve the country’s problems in various areas.
Abbas Aliabadi made the remarks on May 9 while addressing the opening ceremony of the 31st Annual International Conference of the Iranian Association of Mechanical Engineers and the 9th Conference on Thermal Power Plants at Tehran’s Shahid Beheshti University.
He noted that organizing the two conferences at the same time provides a good chance to find good solutions for the country’s problems in related areas.
One of the biggest and growing problems in our country is energy and its cost, he said, adding, “We should let people use their electricity quota as something they can trade or sell.”
Criticizing the way water is being used in the country, especially in farming, he asked engineers and experts to come up with better solutions. “Mechanical engineers should use their knowledge to make practical solutions and implement them. We should make these conferences more scientific and practical so they can help with the country’s current problems.”
According to Aliabadi, Iran has a 2% share in the world’s science while this figure is 3.42% when it comes to mechanical engineering. He hoped engineers can use scientific advances to fulfill national needs.
Elsewhere, he said that MAPNA Group has tried to attract the country’s experts as more than six thousand experts are working in the conglomerate. He said conferences like this can also make a place for people from industry and academia to talk to each other.
Iran’s Deputy Energy Minister Homayoun Haeri was another speaker at the event who talked about the history of power plants in Iran.
“The power plant industry in Iran has been around for a long time. At the time of the [1979] revolution, our power plants had a total capacity of 7,000 MWs. Now the capacity has increased to 91,000 MWs, and more than half of them were built by Iranian experts in MAPNA Group,” he said.
Plans are underway to convert gas units to combined cycle ones, he said, adding that gas units will have an increased share of the country’s energy in the future as they generate close to 1,000 MWs right now.
He said more than 70% of combined cycle units are developed by MAPNA Group and they are very efficient. “We have 35,600 MWs of combined cycle power plants. We also have 1,200 MWs of steam cycles that make electricity without using fuel. So we save more than 18 billion cubic meters of gas or diesel every year.”
The three-day scientific event was co-organized by MAPNA Group and Shahid Beheshti University.
This conference featured various scientific events and activities, such as parallel sessions and panels, research and industrial papers, keynote speeches by prominent local and foreign professors, exhibitions of knowledge-based and industrial products, workshops, and student competitions for scholars, academics, and practitioners.
The conferences aim to provide the latest scientific research in the field of mechanical engineering, improve the relationship between industry and academia, and create a connection between researchers from different universities around the country.