Azernews.Az

By Abdul Kerimkhanov

Currently, Iran is among the 20 countries in the world with the greatest potential for electricity production and ranks first in the Middle East.

Significant advantages due to which Iran’s electric power industry has become famous in the region are the possession of the largest electricity distribution network in the region, Iran’s power grid connection with neighboring countries, the possession of enormous natural gas and oil resources, the necessary equipment for building and operating power plants, self-sufficiency in creating the necessary equipment, as well as experienced and skilled labor.

Iran’s potential for electricity, in addition to land communication with neighboring countries, has created good prerequisites for the export of excess electricity to these countries. At present, Iran exports electricity to Azerbaijan, Iraq, Turkey, Afghanistan, Armenia and Turkmenistan.

Iran has produced more than 2.83 billion kWh of electricity from renewable sources since an attempt was made in mid-2009 to shift the focus from fossil fuels to more environmentally friendly types of energy.

This amount of clean energy was produced from July 2009 to the end of February 2019, which reduced the consumption of 804 million cubic meters of fossil fuels. It also saved 623 million liters of water.

In addition, the use of clean energy has helped the country reduce emissions of 1.95 million tons of greenhouse gases over the past nine years.

Renewable power plants are gaining popularity in Iran. With more than 300 days of sunshine throughout the year, the country has great potential to expand the infrastructure of solar energy and attract foreign investment.

The country meets more than 80 percent of its electricity needs from fossil-fired thermal power plants. Of the total production capacity of 82,000 MW, only a scant amount of 680 MW comes from renewable energy sources.

Data on the Iranian energy sector show that 42 percent of the country's renewable energy comes from solar energy, 41 percent from wind power plants, 13 percent from HPPs, two percent from heat recovery and two percent from biomass.

One of the priorities of the four-year program for the development of Iran (2017-2021) is to increase the potential for the production of various types of energy, including electricity.

Based on this, Iran developed a document on the future of electricity production in order to achieve a production level of more than 100,000 MW / h of electricity based on a variety of production methods, including using solar and wind power plants or combined cycle power plants.

Thus, Iran intends to invest more than $ 50 billion in the production and distribution of electricity in the next seven years.

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Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94

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