TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran has selected 16 locations as suitable for new nuclear power plants it intends to build to boost its energy production over the next 15 years, authorities said on Saturday.

The Islamic republic says it needs 20 large-scale plants to meet its growing electricity needs over the next one-and-a-half decades. It currently operates a 1,000-megawat nuclear power plant at Bushehr, a coastal town on the Persian Gulf, and is planning to build a 360-megawatt nuclear power plant in the southwestern town of Darkhovin.

"The whole country has been studied in the past years," said Vice President Fereidoun Abbasi, who also heads Iran's atomic energy organization. "Adequate locations, on the basis of global parameters, were probed and 16 locations at various parts of the country were identified," he said in comments published by the semiofficial ISNA news agency.