ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The owners of private generators in Erbil province have until the end of September to silence their generators or their licenses will be revoked, the deputy governor told Rudaw on Thursday.
Hemin Qadir said that the implementation of the decision to silence private generators was delayed due to the spread of coronavirus in the Kurdistan Region, but has not been cancelled.
“We will wait until the end of this month. If any owner of private generators fails to silence their generator, their license will be revoked,” he said.
There are some 1,100 private generators in Erbil, according to data obtained by Rudaw.
Successive Kurdish governments have been unable to provide 24-hour electricity to the public for decades. Blackouts are a daily occurrence across Iraq and the Kurdistan Region and have become a serious source of public anger.
Many households rely on costly and noisy generators to fill in the shortages.
The international industry standard for noise levels of imported, brand-name generators is 75 to 80 decibels (dB), the sound of a running washing machine or city traffic, Fakhir Hamad, country manager selling generators in Iraq for FG Wilson Power Solutions recently told Rudaw.
According to Hamad, most neighborhood generators in Erbil are cheaper, locally manufactured that do not meet these standards.
Soon after becoming the governor of the province, Firsat Sofi promised to draft new regulations designed to reduce noise and air pollution.
“Today, in the presence of the Private Generators Council of Erbil, we have decided on the silencing of the noise of private generators in Erbil,” Sofi said late last year.
The ruling gave the owners of the generators until May 1 to make changes but the spread of coronavirus in the Region in March hindered the implementation of the ruling.
According to Qadir, owners have another option: building an enclosed space for the generators. “What matters is that the noise of the generators should not go out [of the stations].”
However, generator workers have previously warned that this increases the risk of fire.
