TEHRAN – An official with Iraq’s Energy Ministry said Iran is supplying seven gigawatts (GW) of electricity for his country which is over 26 percent of the Arab country’s total electricity consumption.

Speaking in a conference in Cairo, Abbas Jabber, the electricity ministry’s undersecretary, put domestic generation capacity in his country at 19.5 GW and the country’s needs at 26.5 GW, with the gap filled by Iranian imports, Reuters reported.

According to Jabber, “maybe in three years” Iraq would be able to achieve self-sufficiency.

“This is something we are forced to do honestly, because we do not have sufficient generation capacity to meet demand in Iraq,” he noted.

Jabber said Iraqi consumer bills covered less than 10% of generation costs but he said Iraq was adding capacity, without elaborating.

Iraq is one of the major importers of electricity from Iran. The Arab country is a strategic market for all Iranian industries including the energy sector and according to agreements reached between the two countries’ energy ministries, the two sides are going to execute joint projects in the electricity sector over three years (or three stages) of 2019, 2020 and 2021.

Earlier this month, the two countries’ power grids were synchronized to operate in coordination with each other.

Speaking at the ceremony held for synchronization operation of Iran-Iraq power grids on November 1, Managing Director of Iran Grid Management Company Davoud Farrokhzad said grounds will be prepared for increasing Iran's electricity exports to Iraq in the near future.

EF/MA