Iran’s energy scenarios on a 20-year vision

Abstract

With the heightened awareness of global environmental issues of greenhouse gas emissions by fossil fuels as non-renewable energy resources, the application of renewable energies (REs) has emerged as one of the most significant policies in most of the countries throughout the world. Although Iran is blessed with high potential of RE resources such as solar, wind, and geothermal, development of such resources, however, has been neglected due to the various reasons. Considering the long time needed to develop and deploy RE resources, a long-term planning is required in this area. Therefore, applying the scenario planning method, this research develops four scenarios in Iran’s 2025 vision, through a combination of the changes in energy consumption and RE generation: green path, standardization, fossil energy, and non-targeted subsidy. Developed scenarios are then compared with the government plan for utilizing REs in 10 % of total electric power generation in a 20-year vision. Results indicate that standardization and fossil energy are the most probable scenarios. Green path is the most optimistic scenario for the country, suggesting the goal of producing 10 % of total electricity share through REs could be achievable by 2025. And the non-targeted subsidy is the most pessimistic and unexpected scenario for the country.