Tehran – Ali Chehel-Amirani, operator of Iran’s electricity generation, distribution and transmission company (known as Tavanir) for the rural electricity expansion program, says 10,000 nomadic households have been supplied with photovoltaic power plants (known as PV systems), the IRIB reported.
“With the indigenization of knowledge for making solar panels in the country, so far 10,000 nomadic households have been supplied with solar electricity,” Chehel-Amirani said.
The official noted that rural households currently account for more than 31 percent of the country’s total electricity consumers, saying, “The number of rural electricity subscribers has reached more than 21 million; to supply electricity to this number of subscribers, 25,000 kilometers of electricity distribution network have been built.
According to Chehel-Amirani, before the Islamic Revolution, only 4,367 villages had access to the national electricity grid, but with the victory of the Islamic Revolution, the access of rural areas to electricity increased 15 times, and currently, 57 966 villages are connected to the national electricity grid. The figure is expected to reach 58,000 by the end of the current financial year (March 20), the official said.
The official noted that currently more than 99.7 percent of rural areas in the country have access to the electricity grid and the rest will also join the grid in the next four years.
In October 2019, the Ministry of Energy announced the implementation of a program to supply nomadic households in the country with small mobile power plants.
Also in November 2020, the Iranian Planning and Budget Organization (PBO) signed a memorandum of understanding with the Imam Khomeini Relief Foundation and the Organization for the Mobilization of the Oppressed for the construction of 20,000 photovoltaic systems across the country.
The project was part of a comprehensive program in which in the first phase 20,000 PV systems would be built for rural and nomadic households and in subsequent phases the number will be increased to 100,000 stations.
According to data from the Ministry of Energy, renewable energy currently accounts for nearly 7% of the country’s total electricity generation capacity.
Of the country’s total renewable capacity, 44% is the share of solar power plants while the share of wind farms stands at 40% and small hydropower plants generate 13% of the total renewable capacity.
EF/MA
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