Electricity Mirage: No Provincial

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 BAGHDAD 002757 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: EAID EAIR PREL IZ SUBJECT: Electricity Mirage: No Provincial Self-Sufficiency in Iraq -------------- Summary -------------- ¶1. SUMMARY: Three provincial governors (Najaf, Al Anbar and Basrah) have said publicly that they intend to disconnect their governates from the national electricity grid. None has actually done so. They are exercised over the Iraq Ministry of Electricity's inability to meet growing provincial electric demand, which they attribute to a policy of favoritism toward Baghdad in the allocation of electric power. The statements are intended for local political consumption. They may also reflect a mistaken belief that the provinces can capture the electricity generated by power stations located in their respective provinces for the exclusive use by their constituents, and achieve some form of self-sufficiency in electricity. End summary. -------------- -------------- The National Allocation System and Its Political Effect -------------- -------------- ¶2. The Ministry of Electricity (ME) does not generate sufficient electric power to meet Iraq's ever-increasing demand. Therefore, it assigns a daily power allocation among the provinces on a population proportional basis. The allotment is necessary in order to provide every province some share of the limited national supply and keep the system in balance as dictated by the laws of physics. This requires the provinces to ration power consistent with the ME's daily directive by initiating rolling blackouts within their province. ¶3. The ME has no real or self-executing legal authority to enforce its daily allotments outside of Baghdad and consequently, some provincial authorities ignore them. Each of the three governates named above habitually disregards the daily allocation, and refuses to disconnect customers ("load shed"). Provincial disregard of the allocation orders is the predominant contributor to Baghdad's suppressed available hours of power (HOP) and national blackouts. ¶4. Despite the allocation violations, supply in two of the three provinces falls short of demand and citizens in all three are provided something less than 24 / 7 service. This has created public pressure on elected provincial governors to do something, particularly because they have power plants located in their back yards. Local press stories have reported that people think that but for helping to supply Baghdad, their plants would be sufficient to provide them electricity full time. ¶5. At the same time the governors are facing local dissatisfaction over power shortages, they have also been taken to task publicly by the central government for refusing to assist the ME in getting more power to Baghdad by conforming to the daily provincial allocations. In classic Chicago political patois, they are being "middled." -------------- -------------- Technical Consequences of Disconnecting From the Grid -------------- -------------- ¶6. The fragility of the Iraqi national electricity grid is substantially due to the strains put on it by trying to keep it in balance when its generation base is not keeping pace with incessant growing demand. The daily challenge for the ME is managing an equitable distribution of scarcity and keeping electricity flows reasonably balanced among demand (load) centers, which pull the electric flows toward them. If the ME cannot balance generation and load the network becomes more unstable and disruptions like blackouts become more frequent and damaging. Significant disconnections like those being suggested by the governors would starve the network of generation and hamstring the ME from being able to balance the system. It would certainly result in major network failures. -------------- -------------- The Unreality of Sustainable Provincial Self-Sufficiency -------------- -------------- ¶7. Disconnections from the grid would ultimately not buy the provinces their desired electricity independence and would not increase consumption levels appreciably from where they are today. ¶8. Anbar Province is a unique case of near self-reliance because the severed 400 KV lines that pass through it to Baghdad from Haditha Dam have allowed it to operate largely as an island. There is a myth that Anbar is already self-sufficient, but the province does not meet its total provincial demand. It still draws grid power from a 132 KV line that is still energized. Without more generation, however, Anbar cannot disconnect its way to self-sufficiency. Anbar, of course is a stability success showcase, which perhaps argues for BAGHDAD 00002757 002 OF 002 taking a posture of benign neglect in this matter. ¶9. Basrah only meets about 60% of its demand, and does so by grossly violating the allocation directives from the ME. It's capable of generating only 36% of its own load. The province could meet about 70% of its current load when the power line between Basrah and Iran, which is planned to import 200 MW of Iranian power comes on line later this year. But even then it will still fall short and in the interim the population will experience a precipitous decline in electric power. ¶10. Najaf, with the most vocal governor on the subject, is only able to serve about one-third of its current demand from the provincial power plants, making it the least likely to achieve success. ¶11. Notwithstanding provincial generation shortfalls that stand in the way of electricity autonomy, central government refusal to cooperate could also doom the success of any unilateral disconnections. Refusal to supply fuel, spare parts and maintenance crews to the generation units would either close them down or force them to literally establish their own public utility companies. -------------- -------------- The Real Dangers of Promoting Disconnecting -------------- -------------- ¶12. As of now, no provincial authority has taken any concrete action to disconnect its electricity network assets from the national grid. They do continue to take more power for their provinces than the ME allotment authorizes and will continue to do as long as the ME is in the business of managing scarcity. This will continue to be the greatest source of network instability and the power shortchanging of Baghdad until and unless the central government takes action to stop them. ¶13. Implementing the kind of wholesale disconnection of generation plant this chorus of governors is suggesting, however, could trigger a profoundly destabilizing situation that would crash the system entirely for a substantial period. It would also remove any realistic chance of increasing power to Baghdad for the foreseeable future. -------------- Comment -------------- ¶14. It is not surprising that as popularly elected officials the governors are using parochial resentment toward Baghdad as political cover to deflect public dissatisfaction over the scarcity. And, they likely do harbor hopes of keeping the power. Disaggregating the system in this way, however, would have the immediate effect of so destabilizing the national grid that it would cause black outs throughout the remaining provinces and further deplete the pool of available power for Baghdad. This is not an unheard of situation. The provincial governors' response to shortage of electricity - seeking to capture domestically generated power - reminds us of pressures faced in the past by Washington State and Oregon governors to explore ways to block exports of their hydro-electric power to energy-short California.