Iran officially inaugurated the country's biggest solar power plant on August 27 - Malard - which is located in Central Alborz province, Iran's Mehr News Agency reported.
Vice President Mohammad Shariatmadari attended the inauguration ceremony.
The facility has the capacity to produce 514 kilowatt hours of electricity, which is two times more that the capacity of the country's second biggest solar plant. Shiraz solar power plant's production capacity is 250 kilowatt hours.
Iranian Energy Minister Hamid Chitchian previously said that the country will allocate loans equal to half of the cost of constructing renewable power plants to the private sector.
The managing director of Tehran Regional Electric Company, Seyed Zaman Hosseini, said on May 19 that Iran plans to construct some solar panels with the capacity to produce 485 megawatt of electricity.
"Developing renewable energy especially solar energy is the main priority of the country," he said.
"Iran has a great potential for solar energy," he said, explaining that Turkey's solar power generation capacity is currently 82 times more than that of Iran.
The Managing Director of Iran Power Generation Transmission & Distribution Management Company (TAVANIR) Homayoun Haeri said in November that Iran is now the world's 14th biggest owner of solar power plants.
"The country's total potential for producing solar and wind energy is estimated to be around 40 million and 100,000 megawatt hours," he said.
Iran's Deputy Energy Minister Houshang Falahatian said on Feb. 26 that the country's budget envisages investing 120 trillion rials (some $4 billion based on the exchange rate of USD at the free market) in the renewable energy in the current year.
"The mentioned amount would be invested in different projects such as construction of new power plants, optimizing existing power plants, and optimizing consumption," Falahatian said.
"In the past six months the ministry has signed 100 trillion rials worth of contracts with the private sector for construction of solar and wind power plants," he said.
The country's power generation capacity is currently over 70 gigawatts.
Iran currently trades power with Turkey, Armenia, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq.
Iran seeks to become a major regional exporter of electricity and has attracted more than $1.1 billion in investments for the construction of three new power plants.