Iran has cut around three megatons of its energy-related emissions since March this year through improvement in production of electricity from renewable sources.

Iran’s Ministry of Energy said on Monday that total power output from renewables until October 22, 2019 amounted to nearly 4.3 terawatt hours (TWh), saying the production led to a decrease of 2.974 million tons (megaton) in the greenhouse gas emissions that could have come through other forms of electricity generation.

The ministry’s press service Paven said in a report that renewables had helped reduce burning fossil fuels for generation of electricity by more than 1.23 billion cubic meters, adding that more than 952 million liters of water had also been saved through the process in the seven-month period.

The report said generation through renewable sources prevented network waste, which mostly comes through heat or vibration in the infrastructure and components, by 476 gigawatt hours while cutting around 18 kilotons of local pollutants that are released through conventional power generation methods.

Iran has a total renewables capacity of 834 megawatts, capable of producing 7.3 TWh of power each year, although actual output figures have matched around half of that capacity.

The share of renewables in total power output is only one percent although authorities have vowed that production capacity would meet a target of 4500 MW, or nearly 40 TWh a year, by 2021, when a current five-year economic development plan concludes.

Paven’s report said a total of 37 megawatt-size power plants were being constructed across Iran on top of 115 existing ones. It put the number of existing small and medium-sized renewbles farms at 3,558, adding that another 2,350 would come on line in a near future.