Foreign Investment in Shiraz Power Projects

Four plans, including a solar power project that involves foreign investment, are now underway in Fars Province, director general of the Economic Affairs and Finance Bureau of the province said.

“The investment plans, worth $24 million, have been verified by the bureau,” Babak Daei was quoted as saying by Shana on Sunday.

Chinese and French investors, whom he did not name, have financed two solar power units in the province at a cost of $18 million, the official said, stressing that the units will have a capacity of 250 kilowatts and 15 KW.

Daei added that only one development plan, worth $4.6 million, had been funded  by foreign firms in Fars in the past fiscal year that ended in March.

International financial and trade sanctions on Iran were lifted in January, allowing the country to reopen its economic and energy sectors to the outside world.

“Foreign investment in the province has witnessed a five-fold rise in the first four months of the current year compared with the same period in the previous year.”

Daei underscored that $278 million worth of new projects in the province, including two combined-cycle gas-fueled power plants each with 30 KW capacity, are in the process of obtaining construction permits.

  Contract With Koreans

Earlier this month, Iran and South Korea signed an agreement in Tehran on establishing a wind and a solar power plant.

According to the contract, worth $820 million, an unnamed Korean company is commissioned to build a solar power plant in Shiraz, the provincial capital of Fars, and also a wind unit in Zabol, southeastern Sistan-Baluchestan Province.

The 200 MW solar power plant, which will be developed with the help of Shiraz Islamic Azad University, will be built with a $600 million in foreign investment.

According to Moslem Mousavi, managing director of Iran Renewable Energy Association, Iran’s total installed capacity of renewable energy production in both public and private sectors is 241 MW.

Mohammad Sadeqzadeh, the head of Renewable Energy Organization of Iran, recently said the organization has signed contracts with the private sector on building renewable power plants to produce 900 MW, of which 100 MW are expected to be produced before the current fiscal is out in March.

Almost 62,000 MW, or 80% of Iran's 75,000-MW output, is generated from thermal plants that burn fossil fuels. In addition, 12,000 MW comes from hydroelectric plants and 1,000 MW from the sole nuclear power plant in Bushehr.