Iraq and Saudi Arabia on Friday signed an electricity interconnection agreement, which will see Baghdad linking its electric power grid with the Gulf, implementing a memorandum of understanding signed between the two countries on the same topic earlier this year.
“At best, it [the linkage] will not even solve five percent of Iraq’s electricity problems, five to 10 percent,” Iraq’s acting Electricity Minister Adil Karim told Rudaw’s Sangar Abdulrahman on Sunday, adding that the country needs an additional 14 to 15 thousand megawatts of electricity to fix its power issues, which cannot be provided based on this agreement alone.
Iraq suffers from chronic electricity shortages, especially felt when summer temperatures reach scorching levels of over 50 degrees Celsius. The high temperatures subsequently push citizens to consume very high amounts of power.
Karim stated that the project will connect Iraq to the Gulf through two power grids, one from Saudi Arabia and the other from Kuwait, each providing 500 megawatts of electricity to Iraq during the first phase, and increasing that amount in the later phases.
Iraq currently produces 22 to 23 thousand megawatts of electricity, but needs at least 35 thousand megawatts to be able to provide electricity 24 hours a day, according to Karim.
The new electricity agreement will not include the Kurdistan Region, as it has not linked its electricity to the rest of Iraq, said the minister, stressing that he has made efforts and will meet with officials of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in the upcoming days to work on this.
Iran announced last month that it had received $1.6 billion of the money owed by Iraq in return for Tehran’s gas exports over the years.
Karim said that Iraq has extended its contract with Iran to import electricity for the next five years at a reduced price compared to the previous contracts, adding that Iraq is a sovereign country and is free to link its electricity to other countries without worrying about how it might impact their agreement with Iran.
In attempt to increase the country’s electricity supply, Iraq reached an agreement with Jordan to import 150 megawatts of power in late 2022, and has reportedly finished its technical supplies to import 500 megawatts from Turkey.
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