Managing director of Iran New Energies Organization announced the organization has signed a contract with private investors on the construction of the wind power plant.

Yousef Armoudeli said that investors have also shown interest in funding another wind power plant projects with the capacity of 1,300 megawatts.

He noted that agreement in principle is issued for close to 300 megawatts and studies are underway for the remaining 1,000 megawatts.

The official cited the Fourth Five-Year Development Plan (2005-2010) targets based on which the share of renewable energy in production of electricity has to reach 500 megawatts by 2010 from the current 120 megawatts.

At present, 120 megawatts of electricity are totally generated by state-owned power plants, he added.

The official underlined that as per the development plan, the government has to supply part of the national electricity demand (produced by renewable energies) through purchase of electricity from the private sector.

The organization, Armoudeli said, will issue permits for private investors keen on launching wind turbines following the approval of their requests. It will also sign contracts with them to guarantee purchase of electricity from private-owned power plants.

Stressing that the world nations have realized the importance of renewable energies, the official pointed out that Europe has planned to meet 20 percent of its electricity demand from power plants fuelled by non-fossil sources.

This shows that advanced countries are determined to capitalize on renewable energies in the near future.

According to him, the status of these energies become more significant when one considers oil price hike as well as growing concerns over adverse impacts of fossil fuels on the environment.

PIN/Fars