Iraq Solar Energy Storage

Although Iraq tends to promote the country's solar energy in two ways: Utility-scale PV units could lead to a reduction in burning of oil and gas, and rooftop solar panels would help individual households reduce their own dependence on “expensive and polluting neighborhood generators”. However, there are a lot in between of untapped distributed

In July 2019, Iraq's Ministry of Electricity invited independent power producers to participate in developing seven PV solar power sites with a combined capacity of 755 megawatts (MW) in the range between 30 MW to 300 MW. Many local and foreign developers saw the announcement as a move forward in an attempt to diversify the country's energy mix.

The potential of solar technologies is considerably large, although its utilization is nearly nonexistent. Compared with other regions, the desert in western Iraq has the highest solar irradiance for electric power generation, compared to the annual global average horizontal surface irradiance of 170 W/m 2.

However, the cost analysis has shown that for 50 kW concentrated solar power in Iraq, the cost is around 0.23 US cent/kWh without integration with energy storage. Additionally, notable obstacles and barriers bounding the utilization of solar energy are also discussed.

Iraq's solar energy strategy should be based on attracting foreign direct investments with strong commitment to diversifying its energy mix and to become energy independent bolstered by its willingness to collaborate with international array of local and foreign partners. Iraq's path forward is not, however, free of potential pitfalls.

solutions of small and medium scale solar, which are more than rooftop but less scaled than utility scale such as distributed generation, which has not been addressed so far in Iraq, and could participate in relieving the overload on the national grid, achieve de-centralization, create jobs, develop SMEs, reduce electricity bills on the long-term.