Mil
08-18-2003, 11:15 AM
http://www.iraq-today.com/news/archive/00002.html
Electricity sector may take a year to power up
By Amir Tamimi
The good news is that Iraq will eventually be able to meet its electricity demand. The bad news is that it may take a year to reach that level.
For the authority entrusted with power in the country, the Iraqi Electricity Commission (IEC) and its Baghdad branch have found themselves in the unenviable position of answering for much of Baghdad's discontent. The commission's 39,000 employees have scrambled to add capacity, fix existing generation capacity and expand distribution even as saboteurs worked to stymie operations. But a series of shocks to the system have complicated things even further.
The acts of sabotage have shown just how fragile the system is. When saboteurs brought down several power lines and transmission towers, the nation's output dropped to 700 megawatts per day, when demand stands at around 6000 MW per day.
The system has yet to recover. In July, generation in Baghdad only reached 1,300 megawatts while demand reached 2400 MW. In practice, that amounted to only about 12 hours a day of power on average, said Nafee Abdul Sada, director of the Baghdad Company for Electricity Distribution. Baghdad has been placed on a 3x3 schedule-3 hours on, 3 hours off-for the summer months. Only hospitals, and those living near them, can count on 24-hour power these days.
Iraq's power system, like most others, is based on three major components-generation, transmission and distribution. In all, about a fifth of the country's power comes from hydroelectric generation, almost a quarter from gas-generated power, but more than half comes from fuel oil and diesel.
Yet generating capacity has lagged far behind demand over the past decade. During the 1990s, generation capacity dropped even as population growth increased demand. By the beginning of this year, the nation's stated generation capacity was 7,500 MW. But thanks to dramatic problems with calcification in boilers and heat exchangers, generation capacity continued to drop along with plant efficiency. Hydroelectric power stations in the north, meanwhile, faced falling water levels in the Tigris and Euphrates thanks to dam projects in Turkey that reduced water flow into tributaries. Generation capacity fell notably as a result. In Baghdad, long a beneficiary of the nation's power grid, a shortage of generation capacity has left the city in the lurch once the city stopped getting favorable treatment. Yet the fuel oil station in Al-Daura and the Rasheed plant in the south of Baghdad are all but obsolete plants based on 1960's technology. The Mosul dam station, which used to be switched on only to provide Baghdad with extra power, has not been working since the war began.
Being cut off from the grid has further worsened Baghdad's plight. The Khor az-Zubair station in Basra has lost 117 towers between Hartha and Khor az-Zubair that connected it to the national grid to supply Baghdad. The Qadissiya station has also stopped supplying Baghdad with power.
The biggest problem is that it takes three to four years to build a new power station, hardly a consoling factor in a country starved for power. But there are several options for quick solutions. Four half-finished fuel oil plants, said to be of Russian design, may offer the most immediate respite. The plants, including one in Yusufiya and another in al-Anbar could be up and running within a year and a half, one engineer notes.
Gas turbine generation, which is far easier and faster to build, is another option, though peak capacity per plant can only reach 30 megawatts, barely a drop in any electrical bucket. As a result, far more generation facilities would be needed. Yet even if the generation problem were solved, transmission has proven an entirely different problem. Downed power lines during the war, along with looting afterwards have left many lines cut. Looting may have taken the heaviest toll to the power grid, as everything from the tools and vehicles for repairing the lines to the lines themselves were stolen. And typically, annual maintenance for the systems was from October to spring. But this year, war and the lack of security left basic maintenance on the backburner. Adel Hamid, chief director of the National Power Management Division, says the Electricity Ministry has set an ambitious goal of completing repairs by the July 25.
Distribution is proving just as critical. Within Baghdad itself, inconsistencies in the supply of power have led to blackouts. In Rusafa, on the east bank of the Tigris River, for example, there is no computerized system for distribution and many areas within Rusafa do not always get the same amount of electricity. Whether certain streets or neighborhoods receive a fair share of power sometimes comes down to the discretion of employees at the National Control offices in Rusafa. In contrast, the National Control center in Karkh, on the west bank, does have a computerized supply network, so that power management there is far more efficient.
And if that were not enough, the lack of security has meant most employees only work day or evening shifts-- if any accident were to happen during the night, few staff, if any, would be available to repair it.
The CPA has acknowledged electricity as a priority. As a result the CPA is allocating $1.3 billion from its 2003 budget to upgrade and rehabilitate the Iraqi grid. An initial CPA repair project is scheduled to finish on August 1. Two months ago, the US company, Bechtel, sent a team of engineers to every power station in the country on a "look and fix" basis.
"By August 1, most of these problems will be solved," insists Adel Hamid. The optimism, at least, is encouraging.
Electricity sector may take a year to power up
By Amir Tamimi
The good news is that Iraq will eventually be able to meet its electricity demand. The bad news is that it may take a year to reach that level.
For the authority entrusted with power in the country, the Iraqi Electricity Commission (IEC) and its Baghdad branch have found themselves in the unenviable position of answering for much of Baghdad's discontent. The commission's 39,000 employees have scrambled to add capacity, fix existing generation capacity and expand distribution even as saboteurs worked to stymie operations. But a series of shocks to the system have complicated things even further.
The acts of sabotage have shown just how fragile the system is. When saboteurs brought down several power lines and transmission towers, the nation's output dropped to 700 megawatts per day, when demand stands at around 6000 MW per day.
The system has yet to recover. In July, generation in Baghdad only reached 1,300 megawatts while demand reached 2400 MW. In practice, that amounted to only about 12 hours a day of power on average, said Nafee Abdul Sada, director of the Baghdad Company for Electricity Distribution. Baghdad has been placed on a 3x3 schedule-3 hours on, 3 hours off-for the summer months. Only hospitals, and those living near them, can count on 24-hour power these days.
Iraq's power system, like most others, is based on three major components-generation, transmission and distribution. In all, about a fifth of the country's power comes from hydroelectric generation, almost a quarter from gas-generated power, but more than half comes from fuel oil and diesel.
Yet generating capacity has lagged far behind demand over the past decade. During the 1990s, generation capacity dropped even as population growth increased demand. By the beginning of this year, the nation's stated generation capacity was 7,500 MW. But thanks to dramatic problems with calcification in boilers and heat exchangers, generation capacity continued to drop along with plant efficiency. Hydroelectric power stations in the north, meanwhile, faced falling water levels in the Tigris and Euphrates thanks to dam projects in Turkey that reduced water flow into tributaries. Generation capacity fell notably as a result. In Baghdad, long a beneficiary of the nation's power grid, a shortage of generation capacity has left the city in the lurch once the city stopped getting favorable treatment. Yet the fuel oil station in Al-Daura and the Rasheed plant in the south of Baghdad are all but obsolete plants based on 1960's technology. The Mosul dam station, which used to be switched on only to provide Baghdad with extra power, has not been working since the war began.
Being cut off from the grid has further worsened Baghdad's plight. The Khor az-Zubair station in Basra has lost 117 towers between Hartha and Khor az-Zubair that connected it to the national grid to supply Baghdad. The Qadissiya station has also stopped supplying Baghdad with power.
The biggest problem is that it takes three to four years to build a new power station, hardly a consoling factor in a country starved for power. But there are several options for quick solutions. Four half-finished fuel oil plants, said to be of Russian design, may offer the most immediate respite. The plants, including one in Yusufiya and another in al-Anbar could be up and running within a year and a half, one engineer notes.
Gas turbine generation, which is far easier and faster to build, is another option, though peak capacity per plant can only reach 30 megawatts, barely a drop in any electrical bucket. As a result, far more generation facilities would be needed. Yet even if the generation problem were solved, transmission has proven an entirely different problem. Downed power lines during the war, along with looting afterwards have left many lines cut. Looting may have taken the heaviest toll to the power grid, as everything from the tools and vehicles for repairing the lines to the lines themselves were stolen. And typically, annual maintenance for the systems was from October to spring. But this year, war and the lack of security left basic maintenance on the backburner. Adel Hamid, chief director of the National Power Management Division, says the Electricity Ministry has set an ambitious goal of completing repairs by the July 25.
Distribution is proving just as critical. Within Baghdad itself, inconsistencies in the supply of power have led to blackouts. In Rusafa, on the east bank of the Tigris River, for example, there is no computerized system for distribution and many areas within Rusafa do not always get the same amount of electricity. Whether certain streets or neighborhoods receive a fair share of power sometimes comes down to the discretion of employees at the National Control offices in Rusafa. In contrast, the National Control center in Karkh, on the west bank, does have a computerized supply network, so that power management there is far more efficient.
And if that were not enough, the lack of security has meant most employees only work day or evening shifts-- if any accident were to happen during the night, few staff, if any, would be available to repair it.
The CPA has acknowledged electricity as a priority. As a result the CPA is allocating $1.3 billion from its 2003 budget to upgrade and rehabilitate the Iraqi grid. An initial CPA repair project is scheduled to finish on August 1. Two months ago, the US company, Bechtel, sent a team of engineers to every power station in the country on a "look and fix" basis.
"By August 1, most of these problems will be solved," insists Adel Hamid. The optimism, at least, is encouraging.