Oil power plant in Kabul, Afghanistan. Approximate location 34.71811, 69.307594.
OilKabulAfghanistanSteam
North West Kabul thermal power plant is a 95 MW oil power plant in Kabul, Afghanistan. It is operated by Ministry of Energy and Water (Afghanistan). Based on its capacity (estimated), it can supply roughly 71k homes (estimated). It ranks #7 of 17 Afghanistan power plants by installed capacity. In context, oil supplies about 10.1% of Afghanistan's electricity; the national grid averages 131 gCO₂/kWh (86.9% low-carbon) (2024).
Plant data: WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0), id GOGPT_northwestkabul_afghan.
Known, modelled and calculated values are kept separate. Missing fields are shown as unavailable.
The capacity and/or fuel fields on this page include a source-backed provenance label from GEM, an official registry, Wikidata, OSM, or a cross-source match.
capacity: GEM · 2026 · L100001047131; fuel: GEM GOGPT
Technically it is described as Steam. Oil-fired plants burn heavy fuel oil or diesel, usually as peaking or backup capacity on islands and grids without gas pipelines; high fuel cost keeps their utilisation low.
Capacity comparison computed from the WRI Global Power Plant Database; fuel-type context is general engineering background.
Operated by Ministry of Energy and Water (Afghanistan).
This oil plant burns oil or diesel to drive turbines or reciprocating engines. It sits in a warm-summer Mediterranean continental climate (Köppen Dsb) — Northern Hemisphere, latitude 34.7°N — which shapes how much energy it can produce and how its output varies through the year.
Climate zone & typical temperatures: Köppen-Geiger world climate classification (Kottek et al. 2006, 0.5° grid).
For a plant’s outdoor hardware — heat-recovery steam generators (HRSG), expansion joints, valves, flanges and their insulation — the local climate sets how fast unprotected steel and coatings degrade. This site sits in a mild atmospheric environment (estimated ISO 9223 class C2 — Low), with thermal cycling the leading environmental stress.
Higher environmental severity is exactly where protective removable insulation pays back most: a sheltered micro-climate slows corrosion, UV and thermal-cycling damage and extends outdoor hardware service life. This is an indicative site-climate context — not a condition assessment of any specific plant or operator.
Indicative estimate via the ISO 9223:2012 informative method (atmospheric corrosivity from temperature, time-of-wetness and airborne salinity), using WorldClim climate normals, the Köppen-Geiger class and coast distance. Indicative, not a measured corrosion rate.
Afghanistan has 1 oil power plant in this dataset, together about 95 MW of capacity.
Coordinates 34.71811, 69.307594 from WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0). View on OpenStreetMap.
North West Kabul thermal power plant is a 95 MW oil power plant in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Its output is enough to supply roughly 71,331 homes (estimated).
North West Kabul thermal power plant is operated by Ministry of Energy and Water (Afghanistan).
