Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 3
By Dalga Khatinoglu – Trend:
Iran has capacity for generation of 60 gigawatts (GW) electricity from renewables, Vice Chairman of Environment Committee in Tehran Chamber of commerce, Industries, mines and agriculture, Hamid reza Salehi told Trend.
“Iran could supply domestic needs and also export if this capacity become operational,” he said.
Currently Iran’s nominal and actual power generation capacity stand at 76 GW and 59 GW.
Iran plans to add 26 GW to power generation capacity by 2021, of which 5 GW would be renewables.
Currently, renewables share 0.32 percent of Iran’s electricity generation capacity. Iran plans to generate 7-10 GW renewable power by 2025.
Salehi said that Ministry of Energy planned and announced power purchase prices and guaranteed purchase pattern of electricity is also intended for foreign investments.
Below is Iran’s proposed tariffs for foreign companies: (Currently $1 equals 36,000 rials in open markets)
According to him in years to come with population growth and rise in economic activity in Iran, the electricity consumption will rise automatically. “So consumption of gas as a form of clean energy will rise also. In this situation renewables 5 percent share in energy basket is very small”.
He said that realization of generating 60 GW renewables depend on foreign investments.
However, Iran ranks first and forth in term of gas and oil reserves in the world. Currently, about 85 percent of Iran’s total power generation is thermal and this figure would remain unchanged in next five years.
On the other hand, the cost of renewable power generation is higher than thermal electricity.
Iran needs 600 to 700 thousand euro finance to generate one megawatt electricity in a Combined-Cycle Plant, the spokesman of parliament’s energy commission Asadollah Gharekhani told Trend, adding that the volume for renewables may exceed one billion euro.
Iran plans to invest $30 billion in power sector, including generation and grid by 2021.
Dalga Khatinoglu is the head of Trend Agency's Iran news service, follow him on Twitter:@dalgakhatinoglu