A decade ago, some parts of Iraq averaged a mere four hours of electricity per day. Today, the typical Iraqi still only has 16 to 18 hours of power daily and only a few regions can count on electricity around the clock. The improvements have made a vast difference to local residents’ quality of life. And yet the situation is far from perfect, sending people to cool off in the Tigris River during a recent “epic” heat wave, instead of air-conditioned rooms.
“We are gradually improving conditions: refrigerators, schools, people’s homes,” says Joseph Anis, president and CEO of GE’s Power Services business in the Middle East and Africa. Yet bringing Iraq back to full power after years of international sanctions and war is a challenge for the government.
So the announcement last week of a power deal, worth $520 million, was welcome news. GE’s Power Services unit signed a multiyear agreement with Iraq’s Mass Energy Group Holding involving power plant operations and maintenance services, as well as digital industrial solutions based on Predix, GE’s cloud-based platform for the Industrial Internet. It’s an especially important development for the Iraqi capital, where up to 600,000 homes will eventually draw electricity from the 3-gigawatt Basmaya plant, located about 40 kilometers east of Baghdad.
The multi-year service agreement builds on GE’s long-term relationship with Mass Energy Group Holding, which includes prior contracts to provide Basmaya with eight units of its advanced 9FA gas turbines and four units of its C7 steam turbines.
The facility will be the first in Iraq to utilize GE’s digital industrial solutions. GE’s asset performance management (APM) software applications built on Predic will harvest data from the plant to monitor the health of the machines inside. The software can detect anomalies and help predict outages before they happen, improving power plant reliability, optimizing just-in-time maintenance and reducing plant downtime.
The Basmaya power plant (top) will be the first in Iraq powered by Predix, GE’s cloud-based operating system for the Industrial Internet. Images credit: GE Power
The technology has already reduced downtime in Western power plants and allowed for just-in-time maintenance, Anis says. It will come handy in Iraq where GE technology supplies 70 percent of the country’s electricity today. (In the north, GE’s equipment helps supply a whopping 90 percent of Kurdistan’s power.)
The new Basmaya plant will consist of eight gas turbines and four steam turbines. Once the facility is complete, it will operate as a combined cycle plant. Natural gas will fire the turbines, which will spin to produce electricity. The heat from each pairing will also boil water to create steam, which will turn the second set of turbines, producing more electricity. This arrangement is more efficient than a simple cycle power plant. It also emits less carbon into the atmosphere, reducing the impact on the environment.
This kind of massive infrastructure project is impossible without long-term institutional commitments and plenty of patience. Though construction is underway now, the plant won’t be finished for a few more years.
For Ahmad Ismail, chairman of Mass Energy Group Holding, the Basmaya plant represents a chance to restore reliable electricity to a part of the country that has been desperate for a predictable supply. “The province that is most in need of power is the capital, Baghdad,” Ismail says. “This power plant will help the people of Baghdad meet critical needs for power, lighting up homes, schools and hospitals, and supporting industrial growth.”
Iraq is not the easiest place to install and maintain a power plant, even for GE, which has done similar projects around the world. One of the difficulties, Anis says, is the security situation in Iraq, which is often unpredictable. Mass Energy Group Holding has built a large wall around the plant and scans incoming vehicles for explosive devices. “We have to make sure our people are safe across the globe,” he says.
As with most of GE’s operations around the world, the people working on the Basmaya project are a combination of locals and global employees. Specialists are brought in as needed, but the workforce will start with field engineers who are Iraqi nationals with many years’ experience at GE. “Our primary focus is using our employees within the region,” Anis says.
Basmaya “will also add a great opportunity of employment to Iraqis, especially for engineers and technicians,” Ismail says. He points to the two companies’ partnership over the last decade as an example of GE’s loyalty and “high level of commitment to the country,” which is unusual given the difficult geopolitical atmosphere.
“Ten years ago many companies were leaving Iraq,” Ismail says. “But GE was the company that remained there, supporting us.”