Possible scenarios for Iran's energy sector

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 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, have been neglected due to the various reasons. Considering the long time needed to develop and deploy RE resources, a long-term planning seems 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.

Keywords:

Energy , Renewable energy , Energy consumption , Scenario planning