GE has signed a Principles of Cooperation (PoC) with Iraq’s Ministry of Electricity to explore opportunities for strengthening the country’s power infrastructure, the company announced on February 16.
According to a press release, GE will work on establishing new power plants and expanding capacity at existing facilities, maintaining and rehabilitating installed power generation and transmission infrastructure for more secure electricity supply, establishing new substations to relieve grid congestion across various directorates, enhancing the interconnectivity between the Jordanian and Iraqi grids, and driving the decarbonisation of the country’s energy sector.
As part of a services agreement being assessed under the PoC, the Ministry and GE also plan to further strengthen local capabilities by setting up a Center of Excellence that includes a Monitoring and Diagnostics facility for the MOE’s fleet, as well as a Training Center for their staff.
Joseph Anis, president and CEO of GE Gas Power MEA said: “There is an urgent need to address the current electricity shortfall across Iraq and meet the growing power needs of the people to accelerate the nation’s sustainable economic development.
In 2021, GE developed a comprehensive ‘Energy Transition Plan’ for Iraq, which encompasses several transformative strategies to support the country’s evolution to a cleaner energy future and further develop the capabilities of local energy sector professionals. These include the conversion of existing simple cycle power plants to combined cycle, which can help enhance efficiency by up to 50 percent, generate significant fuel savings, and decrease greenhouse gas emissions intensity by up to 35 percent; utilizing gas that is currently flared to produce electricity; as well as implementing carbon capture solutions and using hydrogen to fuel power plants to lead to potential near-zero carbon emissions in the long term.
