Iran’s largest rooftop solar plant commissioned in Khorasan Razavi
Iran inaugurated its largest rooftop solar power plant on Tuesday in the Chenaran industrial zone of Khorasan Razavi Province, with a capacity of 4.5 megawatts, a provincial official said.
According to Javad Khodaei, the senior advisor to the provincial governor, the launch of the rooftop solar facility in Chenaran set a new record in the scale and capacity of such plants nationwide, IRNA reported.
"This plant, with a significant capacity of 4.5 megawatts, was built on a 90,000-square-meter site and completed within six months," said the deputy head of the Renewable Energy Committee of Khorasan Razavi.
The northeastern province now “holds the title of the largest rooftop solar power plant in the country, as earlier rooftop units exceeding 2 megawatts had also been built here, with previous records likewise belonging to Khorasan Razavi.”
The province currently ranks first in Iran for rooftop solar capacity, the official said, adding that industrial investment in rooftop plants offers “an economic, intelligent and sustainable solution” to tackle energy imbalances in the industrial sector.
Khorasan Razavi has taken “major steps” toward becoming a national hub for renewable energy, he said. More than 40 megawatts of rooftop solar plants are already connected to the grid in the province.
There is the unbalanced growth between power production and consumption over the past decade in the county. According to Energy Ministry, "In the last 10 years, electricity production has increased 13-fold while consumption has risen 23-fold, leading to a grid imbalance."
The government had granted all administrative departments a deadline — effective June 21 — to supply part of their required electricity from solar energy. It has also offered incentives for industries to build dedicated power plants, particularly solar farms, to cover part of their own demand.