Iraq announces another 2 GW solar project

Under development by Chinese conglomerate Power China, the project will initially have a capacity of 750 MW.

The agreement was signed by Li Dzhi, deputy director general of China Power, and Maha Hamoudi Abdul-Jabba, director general of the Investments and Contracts Department at the Ministry of Electricity.

Image: Government of Iraq

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The Iraqi government has announced that Chinese state-owned conglomerate Power Construction Corporation of China (Power China) is planning to deploy 2 GW of PV capacity across several unspecified locations in Iraq.

The agreement for the project was signed by Li Dzhi, deputy director general of China Power, and Maha Hamoudi Abdul-Jabba, director general of the Investments and Contracts Department at the Ministry of Electricity.

“The solar energy project contributes to increasing the production of electrical energy, to supply the system with clean renewable energy,” the government added. “It is also one of the first pilot projects in Iraq, which is implemented for the first time.”

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No more technical or financial details on the new scheme were released.

Currently, there is another PV project under development with the same size in the Middle Eastern country, that of UAE-based developer Masdar, which signed in June an agreement with Iraq's government to build PV power generation assets with a combined capacity of 2 GW in the country.

According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, Iraq has an installed PV capacity of only 216 MW despite a huge solar potential. No additional solar power has been deployed in the country in the past three years. In 2017, Iraq’s installed, mainly fossil-fuel based power generation capacity stood at around 11.3 GW versus demand estimated at 17 GW.

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