The first photovoltaic power station in Bushehr Province is ready to join the national power grid, the managing director of the province's electricity distribution company said.
"The hi-tech 100-kilowatt solar plant, located in Khormoj, the capital of Dashti County, is equipped with solar trackers," Amrollah Parad was also quoted as saying by NIOC's news portal on Saturday.
Trackers direct solar panels or modules toward the sun. These devices change their orientation throughout the day to follow the sun’s path to maximize energy capture.
According to the official, trackers help minimize the angle through which a ray of light creates a line perpendicular to the surface between the incoming light and the panel, which increases the amount of energy produced by the installation.
"The use of solar trackers can increase electricity production by around a third compared with modules at a fixed angle," he said.
Commenting on finances, Parad said, "The initiative was developed with the help of the private sector and can pave the way to harness the power of the sun to generate electricity in water-stressed regions."
Referring to solar systems as a new technique to meet power demand, the official noted that the use of such environmentally-friendly systems for industrial and household thermal applications has been increasing worldwide in the last few years.
"Due to the limitation of fossil fuel resources and their detrimental impact on ecology, taking advantage of renewables is inevitable," Parad said.
Pointing to the drastic decline in the number of water sources in the province, Parad said, "Photovoltaic power stations can be the best alternative to generate power instead of using conventional power plants, which need a lot of water."
According to the official, the solar venture, to go on stream soon, is an important stepping stone in Iran's clean energy program to raise the current capacity of renewables at 500 megawatts to 5,000 MW by 2022, the end of its Sixth Five-Year Economic Development Plan.
--- Lack of Competition
Energy experts, including Raheleh Ghezel, the deputy of Renewables Committee of Iran Electrical Industry Syndicate, believe that a lack of competition in an energy market largely dominated by the public sector is holding back the renewable industry.
Noting that in Iran, most enterprises are state-run or state-owned, she said the government has performed well in terms of feed-in tariffs for renewable projects, but that's not enough.
Feed-in tariff is a payment made typically by a public utility company to households or businesses generating their own electricity through the use of renewable or other power generating sources.
"It is about the people who have not embraced the idea of solar panels on rooftops yet. Electricity is cheap in Iran and [that is why] there's little interest in any form of energy outside of fossil fuels," the official said.
Rooftop solar power is gaining traction globally, as the costs of manufacturing photovoltaic panels are falling.
