First of Three New Wind Farms for Iran

Iran has launched a new wind farm in Takestan, which is located in the north-western Qazvin Province.

Vestas turbines in Iran 300x1991 First of Three New Wind Farms for Iran
Vestas turbines in Iran

This will be followed by two further Wind Farms for Iran. One in the north-east of the country (Khorasan) and the south-east (Sistan-Baluchestan). These three new farms were announced in October last year, by the managing director of Iran Power Generation Transmission Company (TAVANIR). Eash will have a capacity of 350 MW.

Currently, the country’s total wind farm power generation capacity stands at about 120MW, while the total power output is around 60GW. That power is traded with Turkey, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq. Iran aims to become a major regional exporter of electricity and with these plans has attracted more than $1.1 billion in investments for the construction of the three new power plants.

Wind Farms for Iran

Vestas 660KW turbine 225x3001 First of Three New Wind Farms for Iran
Vestas 660KW Turbine

The government launched a tender for the right to design, build and operate the three plants, hoping to attract private investors. Iran aims to generate 1.5% of its energy from renewable energies by 2016, compared with less than 1% in 2013. To boost funding for this deployment, the government announced its plans for a sharp increase in power purchase tariffs from IRR 1,300 (EUR 0.04) to IRR 4,000 (EUR 0.12) per kilowatt-hour. Most of the existing 110MW of wind power installed in Iran is powered by turbines based on the Vestas 660kW machines (see photo below). Parts of these were made locally under licence by the Sadid Industrial Group. Another company, Iran’s Mapna industrial Group, said it planned to manufacture 2.5MW turbines by “indigenising” the technology.

Finally,  SANIR, a company affiliated to the Iranian Energy Ministry, will construct a wind farm in Pakistan in collaboration with a Pakistani private company. Pakistan suffers from a lack of energy resources. In mid-June Iran signed a major long-term gas export contract with Pakistan.

At present Iran is the only Middle Eastern country which can construct wind turbines.