Shortage of power lines, not electricity, to blame for Kurdistan’s blackouts

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The daily power blackouts in the Kurdistan Region are not because the enclave is not producing enough electricity: it’s a problem of distribution.

“We are generating 5,000 megawatts of power but we don’t have the good infrastructure,” Hogir Shali, deputy minister for electricity in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), said Wednesday.

“We can distribute only 3,500 megawatts of the power we generate,” he said at a panel of an Economic Forum of Erbil’s Middle East Research Institute (MERI).

“Power generation is one issue and distribution is another,” he said.

Shali explained that investments had been made in the power sector in the boom years of the Kurdistan Region, which came to an abrupt halt in 2014, when Baghdad stopped making regular payments from the national budget and the Kurds were pulled into an ongoing war with the Islamic State (ISIS).

“By 2017 we will be producing 7,000 mw, but we will still be unable to deliver this to the public,” he said, adding that the government must try to pave the way for private companies to sell the power to the public.

Shali said that other problems that exist include an efficient system to collect bills and stop theft of electricity.

“The system of collecting electricity bills is very inefficient, because many people don’t pay their bills. We receive a very limited amount for bills from the public,” he said. “Only 10 percent of the bills are paid. Ninety percent of the expense is borne by the government.”

According to Shali, there was no good law to stop the theft of electricity, only small fines for offenders, which were not enough to put a stop to the illegal practice.

“We cannot say the KRG has been mismanaging electricity,” the deputy minister said, explaining that the ministry was also a victim of Kurdistan’s severe financial crisis.

Shali said that there was a draft law in the works to privatize the electricity sector.

In Kurdistan, as in the rest of Iraq, households are hooked up to privately-owned power generators in every neighborhood, which kick in for subscribers every time state power shuts down.