Iraq’s electricity output has dipped to its lowest point in three years, while the blistering sun likely will bring another summer of +100 degrees in temperatures and as U.S. engineers wind down their rebuilding of the crippled power grid. Iraq struggles as U.S. engineers leave the power grid unfinished.

On the third-year anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March, the Associated Press reported the lowest point of electricity output in the war-torn country. As the desert sun musters another broiling summer, U.S. engineers are winding down their rebuilding of the crippled power grid.

The demand for power soared after Saddam fell — and crashed the grid. It’s been a long, hard fight to get it back up. The Ministry of Electricity, USAID and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have been working since May 2003 to restore the capacity of Iraq’s power system.

Yet the overstressed network is producing less than half the electricity needed to meet Iraq’s demand.

Now American experts are working hard to shore up the system’s weaknesses as temperatures of +100 degrees approach beginning as early as May, driving up demand for air conditioning, electric fans and refrigeration. Demand, almost 9,000 megawatts last summer, is expected to rise sharply this year, and the Army engineers responsible for Baghdad are worried: they’re about 4,000 megawatts in the hole nationwide to meet necessary needs. The system risked losing 300 megawatts more in hydroelectric power because the Tigris River was running extremely low. (However, a recent agreement by Turkey to release more upriver water appears to have lifted that threat.)

Despite grueling heat, security and safety issues and other hardships, the Army Corps of Engineers regard their ‘Restore Iraq Electricity’ project as one of the great feats in corps history. Their efforts and related programs, at a three-year cost of more than US$4 billion and tens of thousands of man-hours, built or rehabilitated electric-generating capacity totaling just over 2,000 megawatts — equaling the output of America’s Hoover Dam.

“It’s not a disappointment, not in my opinion,” AP quoted Kathye Johnson, reconstruction chief for the joint U.S. military-civilian project office in Baghdad. “We’ve added megawatts to the grid.”

To wit: While Baghdad finds itself with three to five hours of electricity daily (as of March 2006), deprived areas outside the Iraqi capital are doing better, as the nationwide average is 10 to 11 hours of electricity daily. This may not sound like much, but under the Ba’athist regime, northern and southern power plant flows were diverted to the central metropolis; Baghdad might have enjoyed power 18 or 20 hours a day, but other cities got three or four. So priorities from prewar days were reshuffled. And by October 2003, U.S. government efforts rehabilitated electric power capacity to produce peak capacity of 4,518 MW, greater than the prewar level of 4,400 MW, according to the United States Agency for International Development. Peak production reached 5,365 MW in August 2004 and a peak of 5,389 MW in July 2005.

Said AP:

Although the U.S. effort helped boost Iraq’s potential generating capacity to more than 7,000 megawatts, available capacity has never topped 5,400, held down by plant breakdowns and shutdowns for maintenance, fuel shortages and transmission disruptions caused by insurgent attacks, inefficient production, sabotage by extortionists, and other factors.

The problem dates back, though. As a recent New York Post article noted, two immediate problems were faced in the wake of the war:

• First: The grid was even more decrepit than the worst pessimists had suspected. Saddam never funded electrification adequately; spare-parts money from the Oil-For-Food program went to build palaces and monuments instead.
• Second: As soon as the borders opened, appliances flowed in, from refrigerators to air-conditioners to satellite dishes (the dishes are everywhere). Money came out from under a few million beds and the country went on a massive shopping spree that hasn’t ended. As soon as the Saddam-era system was exposed to “normal” demands, it crashed.

Further, the decline of Iraq’s electrical system can be traced back at least to the 1991 Gulf War, when U.S. warplanes targeted the grid. The government rebuilt the system to produce 4,400 megawatts, still short of demand. But damage from the 2003 invasion (e.g., looting that followed) knocked down production to 3,200 megawatts and wrecked transmission lines. The Army engineers, upon their 2003 arrival in Iraq, found power plants barely operating, lacking spare parts and suffering from years of neglect brought on by United Nations trade sanctions. They brought in contractors to upgrade installations, but the looting and sabotage went on. Insurgents attacked fuel pipelines. Other Iraqis toppled transmission towers to keep power in their own cities and away from Baghdad.

And now the U.S. reconstruction money is running out, the last generating project is undergoing startup testing in southern Iraq, and the Americans view 2006 as a year of transition to full Iraqi responsibility, aided by a U.S. budget for “sustainability,” including training and advisory services.

Even that long-term support might fall short, however. The reconstruction agency allotted $460 million for this purpose, but in a report to Congress on Jan. 30, the special inspector-general for Iraq reconstruction estimated $720 million would be needed. (The Iraqi government placed $50 million to help reconstruct Tal Afar, a northern Iraqi city, by paving roads and rebuilding hospitals and schools and by improving infrastructure, including the electric grid and sewer and water systems, President Bush noted recently in a speech he delivered to the City Club of Cleveland.)

Some believe mistakes are more to blame than are extrinsic problems. For instance, Americans installed gas-turbine generators rather than having built or overhauled more of the oil-fuelled, steam-run plants. “Iraq doesn’t have pipelines to deliver natural gas from its oil fields, so plant operators resort to low-grade oil to run the gas-combustion engines, reducing power output by up to 50 percent and potentially damaging the machinery,” notes AP. Meanwhile, demand continues to rise as Iraqis invest in imported air conditioners, washers/driers, DVD players and other power-hungry appliances. To help fill the gap, households or neighborhood groups are buying diesel-run generators, stringing dangerous makeshift wiring around their homes.

According to reconstruction chief Johnson, Iraq’s five-year cost estimate is “probably in the range of $16 billion to $20 billion to complete the infrastructure to provide 24/7 sustainable power to all the citizens of Iraq.”

A recent survey by the International Republican Institute, a pro-democracy advocacy group, asked 2,200 Iraqis which of 10 problems “requiring a political or governmental solution” was most important to them: No. 1, by a margin of about 10 percent, was inadequate electricity. Terrorists came in at eighth.

Earlier: Engineering Iraq’s Reconstruction