Iraq’s electricity back online after nationwide outage

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s electricity ministry said on Tuesday that the national grid came back online after a countrywide power outage a day prior, citing a major transmission line failure as the cause.

“The electricity situation has returned to normal in all provinces and there are no such problems remaining in the lines,” ministry spokesperson Ahmed Musa told Rudaw.

He explained that “significant load” on the Musayyib and Babil transmission line was the reason for the nationwide blackout.

Power was restored at midnight, but sporadic cuts continued due to testing, according to Musa.

On Monday, a nationwide power outage struck Iraq following a sudden and unexpected failure in the national grid. The electricity ministry said that the grid abruptly “lost over 6,000 megawatts,” leading to a complete system shutdown.

Ministry undersecretary Adel Karim told Rudaw that the failure in Babil and Karbala provinces had a “cascading impact on power stations in other provinces.”

The strain on the grid comes as millions of pilgrims make their way to Karbala for the Arbaeen pilgrimage, which commemorates the end of the 40-day mourning period for Imam Hussein ibn Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, who was killed in the Battle of Karbala in 680 CE.

According to the electricity ministry, power production in the country is at 26,000 megawatts, but in the summer, demand rises to 54,000 megawatts.

The outage excluded the Kurdistan Region, which was unaffected.