Iraq’s first industrial-scale solar plant opens in Karbala desert to tackle electricity crisis
Iraq is set to open the country’s first industrial-scale solar plant on Sunday in a vast expanse of desert in Karbala province, southwest of Baghdad.
It’s part of a new push by the government to expand renewable energy production in a country that is frequently beset by electricity crises.
“This is the first project of its type in Iraq that has this capacity,” said Safaa Hussein, executive director of the new solar plant in Karbala, standing in front of row after row of black panels. From above, the project looks like a black-clad city surrounded by sand.
The plant aims to “supply the national network with electricity, and reduce the fuel consumption especially during the daytime peak load, in addition to reducing the negative environmental impact of gas emissions,” he said.
The newly opened solar plant in Karbala will eventually be able to produce up to 300 megawatts of electricity at its peak, said Nasser Karim al-Sudani, head of the national team for solar energy projects in the Prime Minister’s Office. Another project under construction in Babil province will have a capacity of 225 megawatts, and work will also begin soon on a 1,000 megawatt project in the southern province of Basra, he said.
The projects are part of an ambitious plan to implement large-scale solar power projects in an effort to ease the country’s chronic electricity shortages.
Deputy Minister of Electricity Adel Karim said Iraq has solar projects with a combined capacity of 12,500 megawatts either being implemented, in the approval process, or under negotiation. If fully realized, these projects would supply between 15% and 20% of Iraq’s total electricity demand, he added.
