Iraq’s post-2003 power sector has seen a lot of false dawns, scandals and broken promises. The failure to improve the chronic power cuts has proved a graveyard for politicians, leading to riots and the dismissal of successive electricity ministers (MEES, 3 October 2011). Generation has risen this year slightly to 8,450mw, but high loss rates erode effectiveness to around 7,000mw. This is not much higher than the woeful levels Iraq has been stuck at for several years, and it includes around 1,600mw of imports.
However, now real change is coming, and Iraq is looking to more than triple current capacity to reach 27,000mw by end-2015, pledges Qusay ‘Abd al-Sattar, Director General at the Ministry of Electricity. “Hopefully within three years there will be no more shortages in electricity,” he told delegates at the Energy Exchange’s 17-19 September Iraq Future Energy Conference (CONTINUED - 1218 WORDS)
