Iran�s Ministry of Energy says capacity for using solar energy will increase in the country through a plan to encourage heavy consumers of electricity to take up rooftop panels.

A ministry spokesman said on Thursday that the government would pay for the interest and other costs of the loans offered to households for setting up rooftop installations to encourage take-up among�more electricity customers.

Mostafa Rajabi said that heavy consumers would need photovoltaic (PV) panels that generate 400-500 watts of electricity per hour, saying those panels normally occupy 2-2.5 square meters of space and can be mounted on top of swamp coolers that are widely used in Iran for air conditioning to simultaneously serve as a shed to increase their efficiency.

�This would be a major component of our strategy to develop renewable energies in the country,� said Rajabi without elaborating on the actual costs of the project which is expected to cover millions of electricity users in Iran.

Iran is a major producer of electricity although renewable capacity is currently around only one percent of a total power capacity of 84 gigawatts (GW).

However, solar and wind farms keep mushrooming across Iran as the government seeks to cut back on a massive energy bill in thermal power plants where natural gas and precious fuels are burnt to move the turbines.

Expanding the rooftop solar, a field�where Iran has hardly made any progress�in recent years, would boost the share of the renewables in the country's power generation sector.

The new plan comes a month after the government announced it would stop charging nearly eight million customers for the electricity they use to encourage low usage of power among households.

 

Source: Press TV