Power Engineering - Report published on Iraq electricity sector

30 October 2003 - An online news service specialising in the Middle East region, www.zawya.com, has published a report on the current Iraq electricity situation. "It is very comprehensive and detailed and will be immensely useful to those of our clients who are interested in investing in the burgeoning Power & Electricity market in Iraq," says Ihsan Jawad, Managing Director ABQ Zawya .

Some of the salient points of the report are given below; the entire report can be viewed on www.zawya.com.

Iraq has one of the largest electrical networks in the region owning 10% of the generation capacity in the region, with pre1990 Gulf War levels at 10,000MW and a per capita consumption of 1,700 kWh. Most of Iraq's power plants were damaged or completely destroyed during the 1991 Gulf War, after which there were only 50 units of the original 120 back on line. Currently, it is estimated that 2,600,000 of the 3,000,000 Iraqi households are connected to the CoE grid (87%). Access to electricity for remote and neglected areas will increase the average Iraq per capita consumption rates. It is estimated that CoE annual customer growth rate averages 1.8%, making the estimated total number of CoE customers by 2003 around 2,600,000.

Peter Gibson is currently the CPA focal point for electricity, with USAID/Bechtel playing an important role in the immediate sector needs. In addition, oil policy has a major impact on the operation and capital expenditure plans for the sector. One of the main goals of CPA is to restore the services to the general public to acceptable levels. To this end, the CPA has enforced with immediate effect the role of the Commission of Electricity (CoE), and has provided it with the administrative, operational and financial resources needed to continue its central role, while maintaining its current institutional structure.

EXISTING INFRASTRUCTURE CONDITION
The 2003 conflict brought the system down completely due to operational considerations. Currently 3,137 MW is being feed into the grid. Most of the plants are operating well below their rated capacity with frequent breakdowns. In general, Iraq's power plants are 10 to 25 years old and have deteriorated significantly over the years. The system is currently operated at lower than 50 Hz frequency to reduce demand, causing a detrimental effect on turbine blades, which lower system efficiencies even further. The 400kV and 132kV GIS substations are 15 - 20 years old, with a limited maintenance track record due to lack of spares.

SCADA and Control Centres
There are three Regional Control Centres (RCCs) in Iraq, equipped with obsolete, almost 25 year old SCADA systems for monitoring and switching operations only. There are 18 manually operated Distribution Control Centres (DCCs) using VHF and public telephone network and three obsolete 20 year old SCADA DCC systems, controlled by the Main Distribution Control Centre (MDCC) in Baghdad, which was looted in the recent conflict. At present, 70% of Iraq substations have RTUs with Power Line Carrier (PLC) communications links for monitoring only, but 60% of these systems are currently out of service because of equipment or communication problems.

Fuel efficiency
Iraq has one of the worst records in fuel efficiency in the region, which can be attributed to years of neglect, and improper selection of fuel type. CoE knowledge of their true fuel cost will encourage CoE management to look for ways to reduce their fuel consumption.

Fuel Cost
There are five types of hydrocarbon fuel supplied to CoE power plants, and pricing for this fuel remains very cheap despite a sharp increase in price adopted in 2000 compared to the 1996 price.

Renewable Energy:
Solar Energy:
A special study conducted by the National Committee for Technology Transfer estimated that between 2 to 3 million domestic solar heaters could be introduced in Iraq over the next 10 years, which could lead to a reduction of around 600 MW in new installations.

Wind Energy
It is widely believed that the west and southwest of the country enjoy average wind speeds above 5m/s, which would provide reasonable economic returns for installing wind farms to generate electricity.

Hydroelectric
It is worth considering ways to improve the utilization of Iraq's existing hydro assets to help resolve the acute shortage in power generation in the next two years.

USAID's short term focus is to achieve 6,000 MW by the summer of 2004, and improve reliability by replacing/repairing damaged equipment; short-term rehabilitation, and adding new generation. This includes completing UN funded $1 billion "MOU Agreement" work suspended by the recent conflict, which should rehabilitate 1,100MW and add 300MW by the end of 2004 (UNDP/World Bank estimates).

Current information on USAID and UNDP/World Bank reconstruction plans show that it will be at least 2007 before Iraq's demand is met, not counting spinning reserve allowances. The CoE and the new Minister of Electricity are quoted as inclined to meet the generation demand by building 6 new gas turbine generating stations, instead of spending excessive money on the rehabilitation of existing thermal steam generating units under the MOU program (UNDP/World Bank estimates of rehabilitating existing steam TPS at $1million/MW, while re-powering them with gas turbines would not cost more than $0.4million/MW).

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