Masrour Barzani said in a joint television interview with a number of Iraqi and Arab media outlets that the Kurdistan Region’s electricity production capacity electricity in the Kurdistan Region runs between 6500 to 7000 megawatts, adding that the Kurdistan Region currently only generates 3500 megawatts due insufficient fuel to operate the electric power plants.
Iraq has long suffered from chronic outages and shortages of electricity in a country where summer temperatures reach 50 degrees Celsius. Rampant electricity shortages have in past years been a rallying call for protestors, with summer demonstrations erupting annually in Iraq’s southern provinces demanding electricity to survive the heat wave.
Barzani claimed that if an agreement is reached between the two governments, the KRG can not only generate power to meet the Kurdistan Region’s needs for 24-hour electricity, but also provide electricity to various Iraqi cities, including Kirkuk, Mosul and Tikrit.
War, corruption, insecurity and lack of investment have all together contributed to a deteriorating grid, leaving Iraqis at times with just five hours of national electricity per day. Privately owned generators set up in neighborhoods try to supplement the lost hours, making Iraqis pay twice for electricity.
To make up for the shortage, Iraq has been importing electricity and natural gas to power its generation stations from neighboring Iran, much to the ire of Washington, which has imposed crippling economic sanctions on Tehran.
Washington has granted Baghdad several waivers to continue imports of Iranian energy without penalty, but ultimately expects it to gradually reduce its reliance on Iranian gas and electricity imports.
The current waiver, Iraq’s ninth, issued in May, gives the country 120 days to continue its energy imports without financial penalties for the trade that has otherwise been banned by the US, after Washington withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal and began reimposing sanctions on Iran in November 2018.
Iran exports 1200-1500 megawatts of electricity to Iraq on a daily basis, in addition to 38 million cubic meters of natural gas to feed several of Iraq’s power stations, according to Sayyid Hamid Hosseini, secretary general of Iran-Iraq Joint Chamber of Commerce. In June, Baghdad and Tehran signed a two-year contract to continue the imports.
Iraq has also signed deals with German giant Siemens and American General Electric to overhaul its outdated grid.
Most recently Iraq has met 80 percent of its obligations required in a deal to begin importing 500 megawatts of electricity from Gulf states.
The deal that was signed last year with the Gulf Cooperation Council Interconnection Authority (GCCIA), aims to increase the electricity supply in Iraq and push Baghdad to be less dependent on Iranian energy. Under the plan that has yet to be implemented, Iraq was slated to import 500 megawatts of electricity from Sunni Arab Gulf countries on the payroll of the GCCIA before this summer.
However, due to spread of the coronavirus and the global economic crisis, the deal’s implementation has been delayed to next year, according to Ahmed Musa, Iraqi electricity spokesperson.
