Charging in Urmia, Iran

Drive to Urmia

The traffic in Iran is supposed to be one of the worst. I wasn’t worried, since Benedikt got by now good in driving calmly, but also offensive. I had and still have a good feeling that he manages the traffic and so far, he did good 😉.

The traffic is especially crazy in cities. There seem to be no rules (which is interesting on cross-sections). Hosseins house is in the middle of Urmia, where we somehow managed to get to. The battery of the car had only left about 17% of its charge. We needed electricity. Hossein’s house itself didn’t have three-phase electricity.  But by connecting directly to the electric meter of the house, we managed to charge 4.5 kW (instead of the usual 2 kW) at 20 amperes on one phase. That way the car was supposed to be charged at about 80% the next morning.

Discussion on electricity prices

Electricity prices seem a very sensible theme with a lot of people. Also with Hossein’s dad, we had a discussion that, even though it might seem expensive, electricity prices in Iran are not at the level they are in Germany (1kWh costs between 0,02€ and 0,10€ in Iran, compared to 0,25€ to 0,30€ in Germany). Whenever we are charging somewhere, we always insist to pay for the Kilowatt-hours that we are consuming. After having it experienced before, we are a bit sensible when people try to exploit our need to get electricity. I guess it is a sensible topic and it might seem greedy, but for us it just seems like being used or tricked if people ask for a lot more money than they would have to pay themselves for electricity. Hossein’s dad wanted about 12€. That is as much as we would pay in Germany. On our ongoing journey through Iran, we hardly had anyone ask for money to let us charge anymore. Iranians are known for their hospitality. Maybe that made us even more puzzled to be asked for so much more than expected.

Since it was the night of the election results in Iran, Hossein was out celebrating the results and wasn’t at home to mediate between his dad and us. In the end, the problem was solved the next morning, when Hossein talked to his dad and we ended up paying a fair price (5€) for the kWh that we consumed.

We left Urmia with a car charged at 82% and headed east, crossing the Urmia lake (an environmental disaster in form of an almost tried out salt lake) to reach later that evening Maragheh.

 

 outlet/socket  Volt  Ampere  kW  kWh
direct connection to one phase of electric meter 220V 1*20 amperes 4.5kW about 50kWh

2 thoughts on “Charging in Urmia, Iran

  1. No one has ever used a 3-phase electricity for charging their stuff in Iran, It is very weird there. So they are afraid if it costs more. Generally Hossein’s dad maybe didn’t know about those price rates.

  2. it’s a shame to ask for money for something like that in Iran.

    although the average monthly income here is about 130-150€(that’s why the price of many things including electricity seems to low to you, but is medium to high for us)
    but many don’t even ask for money for a food or so from guests coming from other countries especially if someone had asked you to hang out to show you places.
    Idk how he really got to ask for it, it’s assumed as an act of greediness here.

    sorry for that bad experience you had 😔

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