Jun 22 2012

National grid grinds to a halt in Iraq

Azzaman, June 22, 2012

Lack of fuel forced a shutdown of Iraq’s national grid, plunging the country into total darkness.

The shutdown continued for nearly a day hours before Iraqi technicians could bring the grid back to life.

The Ministry of Electricity said the whole grid stopped functioning because there were no more fuel supplies available

Major power stations in the country had to be shut down for many hours before power production was resumed, said the ministry’s spokesman Musaib al-Mudarisi.

But technicians privately say the failure of the national grid was caused by an unexpected hike in demand amid rising temperatures that have surged beyond 40 degrees centigrade.

Nearly 10 years after the U.S. invasion of the country and spending of billions of dollars, Iraqis still suffer outages that may last up to 20 hours a day.

Electricity represents the real story of failure in a failed country and points to massive waste of resources.

Electricity officials keep talking of new contracts worth billions of dollars and completion of new plants but supplies are still worse than the days of former President Saddam Hussein.

Iraq’s power needs are estimated at 14,000 megawatts but the countr’sy total capacity hardly provides half the domestic demand.

Iraq imports electricity mainly from Iran at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

This post has already been read 2062 times!