Construction of $570 Million Solar Power Plant in Iran Halted ‘Due to Sanctions’
British company “Carcus” which signed a contract last September to build a 600-megawatt solar power plant worth 500 million euros ($570 million) with Iran says it has halted the project due to the impact of American sanctions.
Reuters news agency reported on Tuesday, August 23rd, that the CEO of Carcus company stated that the company decided to suspend the project following the reimposition of American sanctions.
Without providing details, he said that the project’s financing has encountered problems and the company is closely monitoring developments related to Iran.
The company was supposed to raise the project capital from private investor companies and a British investment fund, and deliver the project three years after signing the contract.
The CEO of the company did not say whether the company suffered losses from withdrawing from the project.
Iran announced after the lifting of nuclear sanctions in 2015 that it intended to produce 5,000 megawatts of renewable energy (wind and solar power plants) within the next five years.
Reuters, citing reports from Iran’s Ministry of Power, wrote that by June of this year, 250 foreign companies had signed contracts with Iran to produce 4,000 megawatts of electricity from renewable energy power plants, of which 602 megawatts had been installed.
The report did not precisely specify which statistics from the Ministry of Power it was based on. According to the latest weekly figures from Iran’s specialized state company managing the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity (Tavanir), a subsidiary of the Ministry of Power, Iran’s total renewable energy power generation capacity as of July 15th of this year was approximately 364 megawatts.
However, the report predicted that by the end of the year, 960 megawatts of renewable energy power plants would enter the production phase.
Iran had predicted last year that 690 megawatts of new solar and wind power plants would be generated, but in reality only 58 megawatts of renewable electricity power plants were launched. No solar or wind power plants have been launched in the current year.
Private company Carcus has so far launched 28 renewable energy power plant projects with a total capacity of 235 megawatts. The Iran contract was the largest solar power project for this British company.
Another major foreign company that signed a contract with Iran to build 2,000 megawatts of renewable energy power plants is “Saga Energy” of Norway, whose operations manager stated in an interview with Reuters that with the reimposition of American sanctions, the project’s financing has become very complicated, but the company wants to move forward with the project, although its construction may be delayed.
Construction of this €2.5 billion project was supposed to begin at the end of the current year.
Source: Radio Farda
