The first solar power plant was planned to be constructed in Iran in Yazd province. This project was defined according to the Iranian Policy for renewable technology deployment. Therefore, a 17MW solar power plant was planned. The project started in 2007 and it is an ISCC (Integrated Solar Combined Cycle System) solar power plant combined with a conventional fossil driven power plant. Yazd solar power plant specifications were presented in the table 3 [6].

Other solar power plant projects are not defined yet. By the way, Iran Energy Outlook assumed approximately 0.1% solar power plant share in 2025 Iran Energy Portfolio. Iran Energy Outlook declares that the solar power plant share should receive to about 40MW in 2025. This prediction was based on Iran solar energy potential and drastic increasing national electricity demand. The long term, mid term and near term planning for solar power systems is based on this objective [6].

2. Conclusion

Obviously, the predictions show that Iran electricity demand will increase dramatically in near future. This trend is a result of population growth and also rural areas development in Iran. On the other hand, the country will have some new factories which will require electricity. Figure 5 shows 2050 Iran electricity demand predicted by MED CSP scenario. The trend illustrates a significant rise which has to cover by installing new power plants. For covering this trend by conventional power plants the entire fossil fuels which are exported now, will utilize. Iran economy development has a deep relationship with oil export. Increasing domestic energy demand will result in the export decrease.

According to the current trends, the fossil resources will just cover domestic energy demand in next 10 years. Thus generating electricity by other resources like renewable energy is inevitable. On the other hand, Iran has a great potential for renewable energy like wind energy, hydro energy, geothermal energy and especially solar energy. Due to this challenge, Iran policy makers in energy sector decide to implement solar power plants. The first step was installing pilot power plants. And the next step is CSP technology deployment by different incentives. Figure 6 shows the future share of different power plants in electricity generation.

However, the high installation cost of solar power plant is still a serious challenge against CSP technology development and deployment. This obstacle will be omitted by mass production of CSP equipments and also increasing cost of fossil fuels. Figure 7 is a prediction of Iran energy cost of different power plants. The graph shows that energy cost of renewable technologies will decrease drastically in 2050.

References

[1] German Aerospace Center (2005), Concentrating Solar Power for the Mediterranean Region(MED CSP), DLR, Stuttgart

[2] Research Institute for Sustainable Energy (2007), Research Institute for Sustainable Energy Website, Australia

[3] Shiraz University Technical Campus (2003), Shiraz Power Plant Conceptual Design, Iran

[4] Iran Renewable organization (2007), Taleghan Conceptual Design, Iran

[5] Fichtner Solar GmbH (2007), First Solar Power Plant in Yazd, Iran

[6] MAPNA Cooperation (2007), Yazd Solar Power Plant Website, Iran

[7] Power Ministry of Iran (2005), Iran Energy Balance Repot, Iran