Tehran, Iran, October 23
By Mehdi Sepahvand -- Trend:
The Iranian Ministry of Energy is ready to conduct joint research projects in renewable energy technology with domestic and foreign companies, Deputy Energy Minister Houshang Falahatian said.
Expressing regret that vast distribution of subsidized fossil fuels has masked the need for working toward the application of renewable energy in Iran , he said the ministry has recently put on agenda to pay special attention to power storage technology, IRNA news agency reported October 20.
Energy storage became a dominant factor in economic development with the widespread introduction of electricity.
A traditional way of storing energy on a large scale is through the use of pumped-storage hydroelectricity.
Iran's first pumped-storage hydroelectric power plant came on stream on September 1.
The Siah-Bisheh pumped storage hydraulic power plant will produce 1040 megawatts per hour of electricity in peak consumption hours and will consume electric power at 960 megawatts per hour during the low-consumption hours of the national grid.
Other possible large-scale methods of commercial energy storage include: flywheel, compressed air energy storage, hydrogen storage, thermal energy storage, and power to gas.
Falahatian said Iran currently uses wind farms with a total output of 14,000 megawatts, adding the number is needed to increase by 40,000 megawatts.
He added there are 15 geothermally reliable zones in Iran and said these areas can produce up to 800 MW of electricity for urban areas with over 250 thousand people population.
Iran's peak power consumption hit 50,000 megawatts per hour in the current Iranian-calendar year (which started March 21).
There is the equivalent of 74,000 megawatts electricity output power plants in the country waiting to turn operational.
If these are to be carried out according to plans, Iran will see 5,000 boost in power output each year. But many of the projects are not progressing as they should due to financial problems.