German co plans 2.75 GW of solar plants in Iran - report

An unnamed German power firm has officially agreed to install some 2,750 MW of fresh photovoltaic (PV) capacity in Iran’s province of Tehran under a deal with the local utility, MEHR News Agency said Monday.

The agreement calls for the Germany-based holding to fund and construct a 1,250-MW solar complex in the capital alone, Tehran province Electricity Distribution Co managing director, Seyed Ali Barband, was quoted as saying. Meanwhile, it will also install 500-MW PV parks in each of Mallard Karaj, Kahrizak and Varamin.

Construction works at the first site is expected to kick off in early 2016, with completion scheduled for May the same year. Aiming to support the development of the projects, Tehran will sign a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) and will lease the land for them at a low price, according to the report.

In order to help meet growing electricity demand in the region, Tehran intends to attract further foreign direct investments from both Asia and Europe in order to build solar, wind and incinerator plants, as well as small-scale distributed generation (DG) arrays. In addition, it is holding talks with Chinese sector players interested in setting up PV panel factories there.

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