Iraq to Build Dams for Electricity Production

PUkmedia          19:25     08/05/2008
Iraq Development Program
Iraq’s Minister of Water Resources, Dr. Abdul-Lateef Jamal Rasheed, has revealed future plans to generate more electricity by water power, saying that a dam building programme is being planned by the ministry to raise total capacity to 2,900MW.
 Speaking during a lecture at an energy seminar, the minister said that the dam building programme will allow industrial and agricultural expansion, fuelling growing industrial electricity demands as well as providing reservoirs for water storage and to replenish fish stocks.
He said that energy is a basic necessity of everyday life, and that Iraq must explore all possibilities to increase its energy output: oil, coal, natural gas, solar energy, bio-fuels from animal and agricultural waste, hydrogen, and nuclear power.
Iraq has been harnessing water for electricity generation since the 1950s, the minister said, pointing out to the huge dams built at Dokan, Darbandi-Khan, Mosul, Himrin and Haditha to this effect. He said they had a combined water storage capacity of 31 billion cubic meters and generate 2,100MW of electricity.
He also said that three sub-stations built at dams in Samarra, Hindiyya and Kufa which already generate a combined 95MW.
Al-Sabah reported on Tuesday that workers from the water ministry are working on several development projects planned for in the 2008 investment programme.
An official told paper that work has reached high completion phases at four dams: the IQD 41 billion Mandili Dam on the Harran Valley with a storage capacity of 3.63 million cubic meters; Masad Dam in the Horan Valley in the Anbar governorate (capacity 1.7 million cubic metres), which will store winter rain waters for agricultural use in summer; the IQD 5.3 billion Shirin Dam in Leelan District, Kirkuk governorate, (capacity 752,000 cubic metres); and the Balkana Valley Dam in Kirkuk governorate (capacity 610,000 cubic meters of water).
The dams will provide water mainly for domestic and agricultural purposes.