Iran has taken baby steps in expanding renewable energy and its development requires changing the economic policies and creating a lively market so that it can compete with polluting fossil fuels, which produce the lion’s share of energy in Iran, head of the Energy Research Institute said Tuesday.
Speaking at the seventh International conference on Renewable Energy and Distributed Generation of Iran at Tehran’s Shahid Beheshti University, Mohammad Sadeq Qazizadeh said the world is moving rapidly towards reducing carbon emissions by embracing clean energy, IRNA reported.
He rued the lack of R&D in the renewables sector and said: “The R&D budget is negligible but an estimated 20 trillion rials ($150 million) is allocated annually for purchasing renewable electricity from local producers.”
“So far the local renewable energy sector has not been able to compete with fossil fuels, and it is imperative that authorities rethink their economic views,” Qazizadeh added.
Iran meets more than 80% of its electricity demand from thermal power that run on fossil fuels. Of the total 81,000 MW capacity, 724 MW comes from renewables.
Iran has huge potential to harness renewable energy, including solar and wind power.
According to the latest Energy Minister data, green energy figures show 44% renewable output is from solar, 40% wind power, 13% small hydroelectric plants, 2% geothermal and 1% biomass.
Based on a report by the Energy Ministry, over 3.13 billion kilowatt hours of electricity has been generated from alternative energy sources in the past 10 years, helping reduce water and fossil fuel consumption.
It is reported that the government has plans to raise the share of renewable to 5,000 MW by 2022.
Asian Countries
China and India are leaders in renewable in Asia. Iran’s northwestern neighbor Turkey has increased its electricity production from renewable sources.
China saw the addition of 5.2 GW of solar photovoltaic capacity in the first quarter of 2019.
Based on the data by China’s National Energy Administration, the country’s cumulative installed solar power capacity at the end of March was 28% higher than last year, standing at 179.7 GW.
India’s renewable capacity currently stands at 79 GW and the government is halfway through its ambitious target of adding 175 GW of clean energy by 2022.
Turkey’s installed renewable capacity currently stands at 39 GW and the country is making efforts to increase it by 14 GW and reach 53 GW by 2023.
The academic and industrial conference was organized by the Power Generation, Distribution and Transmission Company (Tavanir), Energy Research Institute, and Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Organization (SATBA) and the Mapna Group.
The two-day event (June 11-12) was attended by domestic and international companies, researchers and professors in the field of renewable energy.
The conference included presentation of several research projects, workshops and an exhibition on academic and technological progress of Iranian and international companies.
