Power outage across Iraq due to record heat

(Patria) - Authorities announced on Monday that power went out across Iraq as hot summer temperatures pushed demand on the electricity network to unprecedented levels, AFP reported.

The power outage occurred amid a heatwave that Iraqi meteorological services expect to last for more than a week, with temperatures reaching up to fifty degrees Celsius in some parts of the country.

The grid outage was mitigated by the fact that most households rely on private generators, purchased to compensate for daily power cuts in the public electricity grid.

The Ministry of Electricity announced that the grid suffered a "complete blackout" after two transmission lines were shut down "due to the record increase in temperatures, increased consumer demand, and increased electrical load in the provinces of Babylon and Karbala, which are experiencing an influx of millions of pilgrims" for a major Shiite Muslim religious commemoration.

The power outage caused a "sudden and accidental loss of more than 6,000 megawatts on the grid," the ministry added, and power plants also suspended operations. "Our teams are currently mobilized on the ground to gradually restore the grid in the next few hours," the ministry stated.

Northern Kurdistan was spared. The autonomous territory has been working to modernize its electricity sector and has managed to provide twenty-four-hour state electricity to a third of its population.

Authorities later announced that electricity was being restored in phases in the southern provinces of Dhi Qar and Maysan, and the strategic port city of Basra was expected to have power by dawn on Tuesday.

Electricity shortages are a frequent complaint in Iraq, which is sometimes shaken by protests when outages worsen during the hot summer months.

Accelerated Changes

Heatwaves in Iraq are "more intense and frequent" than they were in the twentieth century, Amer al-Jaberi, spokesperson for the meteorological service, told AFP, blaming climate change and human factors.

He said that gas emissions and fumes from private generators "contribute to the rise in temperatures" and called for the creation of a "green belt" around Baghdad "so that the city can breathe a little."

In July 2023, a fire at a substation in the south caused a widespread power outage.

Although the vast majority of Iraqis rely on private generators, they are often unable to power all household appliances, especially air conditioners. Even without a national power outage, the poorest endure intense heat daily.

"It's hot, we don't have electricity, it comes on for two hours, and then we can sleep and rest a little," said Haider Abbas, a forty-four-year-old day laborer, in his concrete-walled home.

Originally from the city of Al-Qassim in the province of Babylon, central Iraq, the father of five cannot afford an air conditioner and instead relies on an air cooler that he constantly refills with water bottles.

"When I was a child, we didn't have these (high) temperatures," he recalled. "At 52 degrees Celsius, I cannot work."

To avoid power outages during peak demand, Iraq needs to produce about 55,000 megawatts of electricity. This month, for the first time, the country's power plants reached the threshold of 28,000 megawatts.