TEHRAN, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- Iran's government plans to build 40 small-scale, clean and cost-effective power plants in the Caspian Sea littoral provinces, Financial Tribune daily reported on Wednesday.
The distributed-generation power plants, with the production capacities in small quantities, would be established in the northern provinces of Mazandaran and Golestan with the help of private sectors, Razmara Zakeri-Far, manager at Mazandaran and Golestan Regional Electricity Company said.
"The facilities are slated to be built within six years across the two provinces to deploy a more resilient, cleaner and cost-effective source of energy," Zakeri-Far was quoted as saying.
"The new plants will inject more than 1,000 megawatts to the northern region's power grid to supply tens of thousands of homes with electricity," he said without providing further technical details.
Currently, three 25-MW, one 8-MW and three plants with a capacity lower than 5 MW are generating power in the region, said Zakeri-Far.
The official said that the Energy Ministry has formulated several incentives to encourage domestic and foreign investments on such projects.
"The Energy Ministry guarantees the purchase of electricity generated by small-scale plants for five years," he said, adding that they can sell their electricity under the supervision of the ministry.
Over the past two years, investors from Canada, Germany, South Korea, China and Malaysia have signed deals worth 150 million U.S. dollars on building 10 power plants with a capacity of 25 MW each in Mazandaran province, he said.
"Three plots of lands have been given to the Canadian companies to start construction ... Equipments have been purchased and are being transferred to the sites," he added.
Distributed generation systems are built near the point of use, with the advantage of reducing cost and complexity associated with transmission and distribution, while offsetting peak electricity demand and stabilizing the local grid.
