Iran's energy sector review

With 290 sunny days covering m ost part of Iran, the Islamic Republic has huge potential to boost the renewables’ share in the country’s power generation. Currently the figure stands at about 0.3 percent (240 megawatts), but according to an official document, obtained by Trend, the Energy Ministry of Iran has planned to increase the share of renewables in Iran’s total power generation to 3.78 percent by March 20 and 5 percent by March 2011. Recently, the deputy of Energy Minister Houshang Falahatian told Trend on October 18 that Iran has 5-10 gigawatts (GW) renewable power firm projects for foreign companies in the next ten years. Power plants 2016/2017 MW 2017/2018 MW 2018/2019 MW 2019/2020 MW New solar power firms 350 600 960 960 New wind firms 140 90 100 100 Total cumulative renewables 730 1420 2480 3540 Total power generation 77422 80862 81997 91254 Iran ’s power generation plans from current fiscal year

During the last five years, Iran’s annual power generation growth stood at about 2.5 percent on average, about a half of planned volume and reached 74.7 gigawatts (GW) in a year to March 2016. Now, Iran says the country needs $25 billion worth of investment in power sector (including grid expansion, distribution sector, etc) for realizing an annual 5.5-percent growth by 2021. Deputy of Energy Minister Houshang Falahatian said that about $17 billion worth of investment is needed for power plants and $7.5 billion is needed in distribution and network sector, IRNA reported Oct.24. According to an Energy Ministry’s document obtained by Trend, Iran is preparing to increase its nominal power generation capacity to 91.254 GW by March 2020. The document didn’t include the statistics of a fiscal year to March 2021, but in case Iran wants to have a 5.5 percent yearly growth, the power output should stand at 95.33 GW. Currently, Iran’s nominal power generation capacity stands at 75.9