Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 29
By Rahim Zamanov - Trend:
Iran's total solar power plant production capacity currently stands at 70,000 megawatt hours, the Managing Director of Iran Power Generation Transmission & Distribution Management Company (TAVANIR) Homayoun Haeri said on Friday.
"Iran is now the world's 14th biggest owner of solar power plants," the IRNA News Agency quoted Haeri as saying.
"The country's total potential for producing solar and wind energy is estimated to be around 40 million and 100,000 megawatt hours," he said.
"However, renewable energy doesn't play an active role in Iran's total electricity production," he said.
Haeri said in October that Iran plans to launch three new wind farms.
"Each of the wind farms will generate about 350 megawatts (MW) of electricity," the Mehr News Agency quoted Haeri as saying.
"The farms will be launched in Qazvin, Khorasan, and Sistan-Baluchestan provinces," he noted.
Haeri further said that the country's wind farms are currently generating 120MW of electricity totally.
Ahmad Kaviani, owner of an Iranian company active in the field of renewable energies, said in July that Iran needs to invest more into renewable energy especially wind turbines.
"The energy minister said that a number of renewable power plants with the capacity to produce 500 megawatt hours of electricity will be connected to the country's national grid by next year," Kaviani said, adding that achieving the goal needs hard work.
"Over the past 13 years only some renewable power plants with the capacity to produce only 95 megawatt hours of electricity have come on stream," he added.
"The government needs to increase the price of electricity in order to make the industry profitable for the private sector," he concluded.
"The power generation capacity in Iran has grown by seven percent annually during the past 10 years," he said adding that the figure has averaged 3.5 percent across the world.
The country's power generation capacity is currently over 70 gigawatts.
Iran currently trades power with Turkey, Armenia, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq.
Iran seeks to become a major regional exporter of electricity and has attracted more than $1.1 billion in investments for the construction of three new power plants.