Supplying five percent of the country’s electricity need from renewable energies is a priority for Iran’s energy industry, IRNA quoted an energy official as saying on Monday.

According to Seyed Mohammad Sadeqzadeh, the managing director of Renewable Energy Organization of Iran (known as SUNA), the country is aiming to install some 100 megawatts (MW) capacity of renewable power plants during the current Iranian calendar year (which ends on March 20, 2017).

“The figure for installed renewable capacity for the current year shows a 700 percent rise compared to that of the last year,” Sadeqzadeh said.

The official noted that the Energy Ministry has it on agenda to install over 300 MW capacity of renewable plants in the upcoming Iranian calendar year of 1396 (March 2017-March 2018) to boost the country’s renewable capacity to 600 MW.

“Hopefully by the Iranian calendar year of 1397 (March 2018-March 2019) Iran’s generation capacity of renewable energy will reach 1300 MW which would be two percent of the country’s total power capacity,” he said.

For the time being the total installed capacity of renewable power plants in Iran stands at 243 MW, about 158 MW of which is generated by the wind power plants and the rest by solar power plants, small hydropower and biomass plants. / Tehran times /