Evaluation of renewable energy development policy mixes in Iran

The installed capacity of renewable power plants at the end of 2021 was about 933 MW in Iran. Of these, about 750 MW were installed in the 2020s alone. This is indicative of changes in the policy mix of tools used in the development of this type of energy in this decade. To identify and analyze such an outcome, in this study, firstly, the type of policies used is analyzed by analysis the types of legislative, structural and promotional policies, including parliamentary laws, cabinet approvals and government regulations. Then, the "effectiveness", "efficiency" and "equity" of each of these policies used separately, as well as the "consistency", "coherence", "comprehensiveness", "credibility" and "stability" of the policy tools which used in each period has been evaluated. This has been done using a survey of prominent experts who mainly have more than 20 years of expertise and experience in this industry. In this study, it was found that among about 40 policies used for the development of renewable power plants in Iran, the policies of "concluding a 20-year long-term guaranteed power purchase agreement", "Feed in Tariffs", "announcing different rates for different technologies in order to justify it economically", "System Benefit Charge for government financing", and "formation of SATBA", had the greatest impact on the growth of renewable power plants in the 2020s. Also, among the top 15 policies in this area, 13 economic policies have been market-oriented.

Also in the 2020s, the policy mix of instruments has improved relatively compared to previous periods. With regard to the approval of the document on the development of knowledge-based renewable energy at the national level and the prediction of various policies in it, and of course the implementation of some of them, such as the receipt of electricity fees to provide government financial resources for the purchase of electricity generation from the private sector and its repetition and modification for years After that, as well as the FIT mechanism as 20-year guaranteed PPA and the determine of different and attractive rates for power purchasing from private and foreign investors, and the improvement of the level of renewable energy development policies with the formation of SATBA, the comprehensiveness, compatibility, sustainability and coherence of these policies have improved. It is clear that this issue does not mean the existence of ideal policy conditions for the development of these renewable power plants, but it has improved compared to previous years.