Azerbaijan, Baku, Aug. 9 / Trend M. Moezzi /
Iran's Energy Ministry is proposing a plan to install solar panels on residential buildings' rooftops.
Deputy Energy Minister Mohammad Behzad told the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) that the plan would help customers save money and lower peak electricity use.
The preliminary cost for the solar panels is nearly $5,000 per kilowatt, the deputy energy minister said. Other government bodies like the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Trade have to help get the project off the ground.
The panels can be used almost everywhere in Iran and can be attached to any rooftop.
Iran has a lot of room to improve its energy consumption and conservation. In June, Mohammad Hassan Zarbaksh, an official at the Iran Energy Efficiency Organization (IEEO), said Iranians' energy use is 13 times that of the Japanese, 8 times that used by Europeans and twice that used by the Chinese.
Zarbakhsh said countries' intensity of energy consumption is calculated by how much energy is used per 1,000 dollars of GDP. By that calculation, the amount of energy Iran consumes is equal that of a nation with 750 million people.
A comparison with its northwestern neighbor, Turkey, shows just how much energy the Islamic Republic uses.
While industry uses 57 percent of the electricity in Turkey, that number stands at 32 percent in Iran. Turkish homes consume 23 percent of the country's electricity, Iranian homes consume 33 percent.
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