VZCZCXRO3998
PP RUEHBC RUEHDA RUEHDE RUEHIHL RUEHKUK
DE RUEHGB #2757/01 2310956
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 190956Z AUG 07
FM AMEMBASSY BAGHDAD
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 2857
INFO RUCNRAQ/IRAQ COLLECTIVE

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 
 
 
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Summary 
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¶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. 
 
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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." 
 
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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. 
 
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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. 
 
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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. 
 
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Comment 
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¶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.