Iran, the new Hub for renewable energy

Specialist renewable energy investor Quercus will invest over half a billion euros in a solar power project in Iran, with construction to start in the first half of 2018, the company’s chief executive told Reuters.

The planned 600-megawatt (MW) plant, located in central Iran, will be the sixth largest globally, behind projects of up to 1.5 gigawatts (GW) in China and India. The work is expected to take three years, with the project coming online in 100 MW phases every six months, Quercus said of its first project outside Europe.

“As Iran opens for business, we are delighted to be taking a leading role in building the country’s renewable energy infrastructure at such an early stage of its development,” Quercus CEO Diego Biasi said.

The company will be responsible for the construction, development and operation of the plant, for which it will set up a specialist team based in Dubai and Tehran to help deliver the project, including a head of engineering, financial controller, project coordinator, planning manager and procurement staff.

According to Biasi, the project by Iran's Ministry of Energy has attracted enough interest from private and institutional investors, including sovereign funds.  

The deal is Quercus’ largest deal outside of the UK and is part of Iran’s drive to build 5GW of renewable energy by 2020. 

“This is a project of national interest, so we got special support. We had enough investors interested so instead of splitting that across smaller projects which wouldn’t have given us the same relationship with the Ministry, we decided to go for one,” Reuters quoted him as saying.

Energy producers from Germany, Italy, India, South Korea, Japan, Spain, China, and Switzerland have already visited the country to test the waters for possible investment.

Hamid Baeidinejad, Iran’s Ambassador to the UK, said the project demonstrates the country’s commitment to developing renewable energy, and in particular solar power. Iran enjoys around 300 sunny days a year.

“Iran, with its special geographic characteristics and position, will be a major hub of solar energy serving the region and beyond. This mega project is the foundation towards that goal,” he said.