Darbandikhan hydropower plant struggles with lack of water, funds

DARBANDIKHAN, Kurdistan Region — A decrease in water levels and lack of funds have contributed to Sulaimani province’s Darbandikhan hydropower plant generating less energy than in previous years, employees tell Rudaw.

Constructed in 1961, the plant has three 83 megawatt Francis turbine generators. A comparative lack of rain this year has reduced the water intake to the namesake dam this year.

“This time last year, two turbine-generators were working non-stop,” Bakhtiyar Tofiq, an employee at the hydropower plant, told Rudaw. “Because the water level has decreased at the Darbandikhan dam this year, we can’t work our turbines as much as we need. We run only one turbine which produces 60 megawatts per hour.”

Last year this time, two of the turbine-generators were running for 16 hours a day. They would generate 2,656 megawatts of electricity per day.

However, it has now been reduced to only one turbine-generator which works for only seven hours per day, producing 420 megawatts.

Moreover, the hydropower plant is also struggling to repair the machines due to a lack of funds.

“Our main issue at the Darbandikhan hydropower plant is the lack of funds in our budget,” Farouq Abdullah, the executive manager of the plant, told Rudaw. “In 2020, we generated [almost] 550,000 megawatts of electricity. If we multiply it by 15 dinars per kilowatts (which is sold to citizens at this price), it calculates to nearly 7,650,000,000 dinars. With this, if they contribute nearly two billion dinars [to us from this], the issues would be resolved.”

According to figures from the hydropower plant directorate, the plant produced 583,445 megawatts of electricity in 2017.

However, due to the increase in water levels in 2019, more than one million megawatts were generated that year. In 2020, it produced only 511,650 megawatts.

However, the number has decreased over the last three months. So far, it produced only 63,000 megawatts.

At a height of 103 meters, the dam is able to store three billion cubic meters of water. Currently, water levels rest at around 80 meters, and the dam has only 1.2 billion cubic meters of water.

If water levels decline another 30 meters, the hydropower plants will stop generating electricity altogether.

Translation and video editing by Sarkawt Mohammed