Business Opportunities Photovoltaics in Iran

Area total 1,648,195 sq km
Population 81,8m (est. 2015)
GDP (PPP) $1.015 trillion
GDP (per capita - nominal) $5,306
Growth Rate 4.3% (2014 est.)
Capital City Tehran (8,8m)
Population growth 1.2% (2015 est.)
Literacy 86,8%
GDP composition agriculture 9.3%
industry 38.4%
services 52.3%

Lifting the sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran earlier this year changes the options for business with Iran and investments in Iran tremendously. The implications for the Iranian economy and the welfare of its citizens are expected to be significant. Furthermore does the parliamentary election in February 2016 strengthen the political course of President Ruhani who is keen to widen the relations with the Western World. As the sanctions for the U.S. remain in place, for European and Asian companies the chances for business could not be better.

Iran is the second largest economy in the Middle East. Its economy is characterized by a large hydrocarbon sector, small scale agriculture, and services. The state is noticeable present in manufacturing and financial services.

With the second largest natural gas reserves and the fourth biggest crude oil reserves 94 percent of Iran’s power supply comes from fossil fuels. Knowing about the volatileness of these substrates Iran is aware of investing in renewable energies.
Therefore Iran is a member of IRENA and announced in its Five-Year-Economic-Plan to generate five percent of the electricity through renewable energies. Therein Iran pays attention to solar energy. Until 2018 500MW shall be produced by photovoltaic.
The potential for solar power is enormous: 1,600,000 sqm with about 300 clear sunny days in a year and an average of 2200 kW-h solar radiation per square meter. The potential for Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) is estimated to be 20.000 TWh yearly and for photovoltaic (PV) 16TWh.

Photovoltaic systems have an unlimited energy potential and face no environmental limitations. They can be installed in any location and are compatible with the topology of the installation sites. Also unique advantages are the possibility of generation in place of consumption and the independence from transmission and distribution systems. Electricity can be generated without requirement of fuel and its costs and the variability in output is in accordance with the requirements of the consumer. The capability of storage and eventually the ease of installation, operation, and maintenance make PV useful especially in rural areas.

Therefore the politics promotes the production of solar energy in rural areas and decreased the costs for developing more of these systems; this goes along with several financial incentives (such as purchase tariffs and tax incentives) the governments have hired.

Particularly suitable for PV-installments are the south and south-east of the country. In the north noteworthy are Kurdistan, Gilan, and Zanjan, furthermore in the center Boushehr and Yazd.

Meaningful for the development of solar energy in Iran will be the availability of rich silicone mines in 90% of the lands as the raw material for the production of photovoltaic cells. As no Iranian production company exist that completely produces PV-cells this could be a unique possibility for technology-transfer in a long term run.

As Iran is rich in natural resources and the population is traditionally well educated an investment in Iran besides the oil and gas industries is highly recommendable.