Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 4
By Khalid Kazimov – Trend:
Iran has finalized foreign investment deals worth of $12.3 billion to develop power sector, a high-ranking official said.
Iranian Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian has said that the ministry also has planed to invest about $2.5 billion in developing the solar power plants, the public broadcaster reported.
According to the minister, this amount is expected to finance the generation of 2,000 megawatts of power from the solar energy.
The minister added that the foreign investment will support about 70 percent of the required finance for developing the solar power plants.
The ministry will inaugurate a number of projects including seven power plants with a total capacity of 2,723 megawatt over the coming days, he said.
More than two million euros has been invested in the construction of the seven power plants.
Saying that the country has already installed 600 megawatt of renewable power plants, he added that the ministry is obliged to annually add 1,000 megawatts to the capacity of its renewable power.
The nominal electric generation capacity of the country has increased by 1,915 megawatts (MW) to 78,343 MW in Iran since the beginning of the current fiscal year (starting March 20), according to the latest weekly data published by Iran's Energy Ministry.
Nominal electric generation capacities of hydroelectric plants (11,811 MW) and Bushehr nuclear power plant (1020 MW) are equal to 15.1 and 1.3 percent of electric generation capacity, while the share of renewables stands below 0.5 percent.