Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 21
By Rahim Zamanov - Trend:
Iran's private sector accounts for only 5 per cent of the country's total electricity generation, the head of Iran Electrical Industry Syndicate, Mohammad Parsa, said on Jan. 21, the Iranian SHANA News Agency reported.
Iranian Deputy Minister Houshang Falahatian had previously said that the private sector's share is around 40 per cent.
"Most of the state-owned power plants have been transferred to semi-state-owned bodies such as banks, municipalities, Shahid Bonyad, and the defense ministry. All these bodies are considered as the private sector by law," Parsa explained, adding that the real private sector's share in electricity generation is not more than 5 per cent.
"The government currently owes 220 trillion rials (some $7.3 billion based on the rate of USD at the free market) to the electricity industry's contractors," he noted.
"If the government doesn't pay its debt to the contractors, Iran will face electricity shortage next summer," he added.
The Managing Director of Iran Power Generation Transmission & Distribution Management Company (TAVANIR) Homayoun Haeri said in November that Iran's total solar power plants' production capacity currently stands at 70,000 megawatt hours.
"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.
Ahmad Kaviani, owner of an Iranian company active in the field of renewable energy, said in July that Iran needs to invest more in 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.