Egypt’s Electricity and Renewable Energy Minister Mohammed Shaker said that his ministry is “studying” the prospects of interconnecting with Iraq by raising the capacity of its existing 13km subsea 400kV line with Jordan. Currently, the transmission line can carry 550MW of electricity. Last year, Baghdad and Amman signed an interconnection agreement where Iraq is to receive up to 1TWh per year of electricity under a first phase (MEES, 2 October 2020).
GE began construction this year of the 150MW first phase of the Jordan-Iraq transmission line as part of the $727mn contract that was awarded to the American firm during a state visit by Iraq’s Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi to Washington in August 2019 (MEES, 29 January). Future phases of the line’s construction will see its capacity expand to 950 MW. (CONTINUED - 236 WORDS)