Wednesday, 28 August 2019

Iran-India to Boost Co-operation in Solar Energy


Iran is known as the second largest oil production member in Organization of Petrol Export Country (OPEC) with production near 3.5 million barrel oil per day and accounts for roughly 5% of global oil outputs. As soon as the word energy is associated with Iran, the worsening oil crisis unsettles you.  On the contrary, Iran is also trying to build up its image as a peaceful country by investing in natural resources of energy such as the wind and solar power.

Meetings between Iranian President Mehmoud Ahmadinejad, Iranian Energy Minister Majid Namjou and India’s Union Minister of New and Renewable Energy Dr. Farooq Abdullah have shown positive outcomes as the two countries focus on collaboration in renewable energy. 

The National Solar Mission is a major initiative of the Government of India and State Governments to promote ecologically sustainable growth. It will also constitute a major contribution by India to the global effort to meet the challenges of climate change.

Energy Minister Majid Namjou said that Iran plans to specialise in solar power and will be establishing 60,000-megawatt and 40,000-megawatt capacity in solar farms and wind farms, respectively. The electricity generated from clean energy resources will be exported from Iran to India as an alternative to gas. India would be supporting Iran to set up it’s renewable energy industry. Iran contains an estimated 812 Trillion Cubic Feet (TFC) in proven natural gas reserves, surpassed only by Russia in the world.

There are favourable conditions for the use of solar energy in Iran considering the average global radiation for Iran is about 19.23 MJ/m2/day (= 5.3 kWh/m2/day). Electric power generation installed in Iran is about 32.5 Giga Watts (GW) with more than 87% being from thermal natural gas fired power plant. Currently, Iran has five small nuclear reactors used for peaceful purposes. Nuclear and renewable energy will enable Iran to export more gas and oil and increase its revenue, since 80% of Iran’s revenue is based on oil and gas export.

In the central region of Iran, it is, even more, higher at 7.7 hours per day (more than 2,800 hours per year). However, solar energy is hardly utilized in Iran as most of the electricity generated comes from fossil fuels and hydro resources. In the past couple of years, 4,000 solar thermal installations per year were constructed, but that’s only a drop in the ocean.

In total, these deals are adding up to many billions of dollars of investment into the Iranian economy.

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