Iran has all it needs to tap into clean energy but despite scientific studies and measures taken in this regard, the real potential has not been exploited.
Cvetan Cvetkovski, officer-in-charge for UNESCO’s Tehran Cluster Office, made the statement in the closing ceremony of the First Regional 100-Second Water and Energy Film Festival held by the Energy Ministry to commemorate World Environment Day 2021 in Tehran on Monday, Barq news reported.
“Despite the huge potentials to harness renewable energy, including geothermal, solar and wind power, Iran is overly dependent on thermal power,” he said.
Renewables in Iran account for hardly 1.2% of the total annual output of 84,000 megawatts, which explains why emission of greenhouse gases is high.
Cvetkovski noted that ensuring access to reliable energy and implementing water management policies are among the top priorities of the UN sustainable development goals, a collection of 17 interlinked global goals designed to be a "blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all".
“Raising the general public’s awareness plays a key role in achieving the goal. Nonetheless, governments have failed to attract people’s attention to the importance of renewables and water management strategies,” he said.
The UNESCO official noted that the global population has doubled over the last 50 years, due to which the use of natural resources to generate energy has tripled.
“The world’s population will keep rising over the next three decades and producing energy will also have to grow by 50%, putting pressure on environment with potential consequences on food security and water resources,” he added.
Support for Sustainable Water Plans
Cvetkovski noted that the office fully supports ideas and measures taken in line with plans to promote renewable energy and sustainable development.
The pivotal slogan of the festival was "100 Seconds for Water and Energy" to demonstrate the importance of energy under the global status quo and with respect to the environment.
The festival sought to raise awareness on the significance of water and energy consumption management for environmental conservation, highlight the role of optimal consumption of water and energy resources in sustainable development, encourage communities to manage water and energy consumption during widespread emergencies, introduce the process of generating, transferring and distributing energy, and illustrate the process of collecting and harvesting, transferring, refining and distributing water.
The festival was sponsored by a number of national and regional entities, including the UNESCO’s offices in Kabul and Islamabad, Pakistan’s Research Council of Water Resources, Afghan Film Organization, Iran Youth Cinema Association, Tehran Directorate of Islamic Guidance, International Center on Qanats and Historic Hydraulic Structures, major specialized companies affiliated with the Ministry of Energy and Isfahan Water and Wastewater Company.
Thermal power plants in Iran encounter problems at regular intervals despite the fact that Iran is a gas-rich country and has a unique opportunity to use renewable energy, especially solar.
With over 300 sunny days in a year on more than two-thirds of its total area, the country has high potentials for promoting solar power.
Solar for All Purposes
Solar energy can be used for heating, cooking and lighting without the need for extensive gas transmission networks and high fossil fuel consumption.
An estimated 73 billion cubic meters of gas are used in power plants annually, which is expected to increase to 100 bcm a year in less than five years. This can pose a major challenge to the government and utilities unless the use of renewables expands sooner rather than later.
The domestic power industry is based largely on fossil fuels and the worsening water crisis is an added problem and a major risk for non-renewable power plants.
Hydroelectric, nuclear and natural gas plants need high volumes of water for their cooling systems, which means that drought and heat waves can put electricity generation at greater risk. Wind and photovoltaic systems do not require water to produce power.
According to the World Bank report entitled the “Three Steps to a Zero-Carbon Future”, Iran belongs to high CO2 per capita countries.
Iran ranks seventh in terms of producing CO2 in the world.
Iran fortunately uses an insignificant amount of coal, which is largely blamed for global emissions. However, the primary energy consumption growth is very high in Iran.
Iran suffers from other CO2 pollution-related problems, especially due to low efficiency in power plants as well as old vehicles.
According to official statistics, 222 million tons of the pollutants were produced as a result of using fossil fuel in power generation in 2013. This means that about 37% of CO2 emissions in Iran were caused by power plants in that year.
