As long as fossil fuels, such as natural gas, are heavily subsidized in Iran, clean energy will not get the space it deserves, a member of Iran Renewable Energy Association (IrREA) said.
“Inexpensive natural gas has encouraged officials to keep constructing thermal power stations and renewables have long been marginalized,” ILNA also quoted Mohammad Amin Zanganeh as saying.
The government lacks a roadmap for energy economics, he added, noting that efforts have been made to replace fossil fuels with green energy. Such attempts “have never been taken seriously” due largely to the bloated policymaking bureaucracy and shortsightedness of decision-makers.
Another major problem is that power export is monopolized in Iran and the administration has never allowed and will never permit private power producers to enter this realm.
According to Zanganeh, global prices for solar PV power have been falling over the past 10 years.
“The manufacture of a solar panel cost $2.5 in 2010, which today is less than 30 cents,” he added.
Renewables are rivaling fossil fuels, including coal, which once was termed “king coal” and was one of the cheapest sources of energy.
Subsidy policy is generally designed to help the low-income strata like fixed-wage earners, but in practice it benefits the rich simply because they consume more energy, which often is the criticism of poverty-alleviation experts in Tehran.
Regarding Iran’s potential for renewable energy, Zanganeh noted that if and when solar power stations are fully developed, they can help meet 35% of the domestic electricity demand, which now is around 70 gigawatts.
“Our oil-dependent economy has never let us appreciate the value of green energy and so this sector is not dynamic in Iran,” he said, complaining that subsidies may be a necessary evil, but in the long-term harms more and helps less, especially from the perspective of sustainable economic development.
IrREA is the only independent non-governmental syndicate in Iran focused on green energy. The association's activities include promoting and institutionalizing the use of clean energy, namely wind, solar, biomass, geothermal and hydrogen energy as well as interacting with major companies, institutions, experts and stakeholders in the renewable energy sector.
Many countries in the developing and developed world are gradually moving away from dirty fuel toward cleaner energy.
Some rich nations have raised the bar higher and declared that in the next few years, renewables and electric vehicles will be the norm while fossil fuels will be consigned to history.
