China and Iran announced the launch of the implementation of a 25-year comprehensive cooperation plan following talks on 14 Jan 2022, between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and visiting Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian in Wuxi, east China’s Jiangsu Province.
Cooperation between the two nations will cover areas such as energy, infrastructure, production capacity, science and technology, and medical and health care. The two countries also agreed to expand cooperation in agriculture, fisheries and cyber security.
Energy development is one of the areas where Iran has been hit by economic sanctions imposed by the US regime.
Head of Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Organization (SATBA) Mahmoud Kamani, said that regrettably Iran is “far behind the global standards in the development of renewable energy.”
Kamani further pointed out that the indigenization of the knowledge for the construction of the equipment used in renewable power plants was a priority for the Energy Ministry and SATBA, saying: “Currently, the construction of solar panels and wind power plants is completely indigenized, and we must strengthen our producers to finally become able to build all the required equipment from start to finish.”
Iran’s SATBA said recently that Iran has an installed renewable energy power generation capacity of around 900MW, of which about 414MW is represented by solar installations.
According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, the country installed around 50MW of new PV power in 2020 and around 90MW in 2019.
In the last week of December 2021, the Iranian company Mana Energy Pak commissioned Iran’s first solar cell production factory – a 150MW facility in western Iran. The company has aslo purchased a factory able to produce 1.2GW of multi- and monocrystalline wafers per year. It has also operated a 250MW production line for PV modules since early 2020. According to SATBA, further phases already under construction will increase the factory’s PV module capacity to 1.5GW by the end of 2023.
Sources:
Tehran Times, 2 January 2022. https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/468694/Iran-to-add-10GW-to-renewable-energy-capacity
Tehran Times, 20 November 2021. https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/467225/Iran-plans-to-create-10GW-capacity-of-renewable-power-plants
ECNS / Xinhua, 2022-01-15. http://www.ecns.cn/news/2022-01-15/detail-ihauveie2087339.shtml