Iraq's private power generators: Savior or climate burden? – DW – 08/13/2025

DW

3 days ago

How do Iraqis cope in fiery summer heat, especially during power outages? They use private generators, which are now essential in Iraq. But the huge machines you see on every city block have plenty of drawbacks too.
This week, when Iraq experienced an almost-nationwide power outage, the streets of Baghdad and other major cities went dark, with only lights from passing cars illuminating the sidewalks.
The Middle Eastern nation is currently experiencing peak summer temperatures — it was around 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) in Baghdad during the blackout, and even hotter elsewhere — and the power outage saw many locals turn to the equipment they always fall back on at times like this: private generators.
"Thank you for your service," one poetic Baghdad local addressed those who maintain the city's private generators in a post on Facebook. They are "the heroes of the hour," he enthused. "Unknown soldiers fighting the good fight during national power outages, enduring heat and smell, so that the pulse of life may beat on in Iraqi homes."
The private generators he is praising so effusively can be found almost every couple of city blocks in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities. It is estimated there are over 4.5 million of them around the country. The ones that power whole suburban streets are industrial-sized, usually about the size of a van, parked between houses, under some sort of corrugated iron roof.
The Iraqi national grid is outdated and loses somewhere between 40% and 50% of power produced as it transmits. Additionally, hotter summers, population growth and growing use of equipment like air conditioners makes it impossible for the national grid to keep up with demand. Iraq's Ministry of Electricity says the country needs between 50,000 and 55,000 megawatts during peak hours at the height of summer. The national grid can only supply around 27,000 megawatts.
The reason for this week's outage remains unclear, although some officials said it may have been caused by excess demand in southern Iraq, likely due to over 20 million pilgrims flocking there for the religious holiday of Arbaeen. This then caused a chain reaction further north.
But even on better days, Iraq's state power plants usually only provide between eight and 12 hours of power a day. Which is why most Iraqis who can afford it, pay a subscription to their local generator owner.
"Unreliable supply from the national grid has made private generation a critical, though problematic, part of Iraq's electricity ecosystem," the Baker Institute for Public Policy, based at Rice university in Texas, explained in a July 2025 report on Iraq's electricity woes. "Each household or business has a separate connection — known as al-khat (the line) — to a nearby private generator that supplies electricity to those within a small radius when Iraq's national grid goes down."
The generator owners sell power to residents on a subscription basis, based on how many amperes a household wants, rather than the actual amount of power used. Prices differ around the country but the average cost per ampere is around $8.40 (€7.21), a January 2025 report published in the journal "Renewable Energies," found. That means most households end up paying around $100 (€86) a month for generator power.
"The household's connection is wired to the generator through a circuit breaker set to that threshold of amperes," Baker Institute experts explained further. "This means that the breaker will trip whenever current drawn exceeds the agreed limit, completely disconnecting the customer."
Most Iraqis are used to that. When state power drops out, Khadija al-Ameri, an engineering student living in southern Baghdad, explains how she turns off all unnecessary appliances, like the washing machine, but leaves others, like the fridge, going. "The generator voltage can't have too many things going at once, and it's also more expensive," she explains.
"I pay around €40 a month for a private generator subscription," says Fatimah Mahmoud, a 50-year-old teacher from Basra. "But it only covers the fridge, TV, fans, and lights. No air conditioning."
Previous studies on the generator business in Iraq, which is unregulated, concluded that locals could be spending over $4 billion on it annually. It's a lucrative business, with documented links to politicians and militia leaders, the so-called "generator mafia."
And in the current summer heat, it's also essential.
On Tuesday afternoon, shortly after he returned home from work, the power went out, Murtadha Saad, a 35-year-old local of the southern Iraqi city of Basra, told DW.
"I had returned home just an hour earlier from my job in the engineering sector under a scorching sun, but the blackout forced me to leave [home] quickly in search of a place to escape the heat," he explains.
Saad himself pays around €66 monthly for generator-provided power, but he doesn't have enough amperes to power air conditioning. So he ended up sitting in a cafe that had its own generator.
"Exhausted, I decided to go back home, only to find the streets nearly empty, houses in darkness, as if we were in a ghost town," Saad recounts. "I sat in my car, using its air conditioning until 9 p.m., then tried to find another cafe or restaurant, only to discover they were all packed with families."
In the inner city, the streets were crowded, he noted, because everyone was searching for a place with working air conditioning.
Hotels and restaurants often have their own larger, diesel generators but some individual Iraqi households also use smaller petrol-powered generators.
"When the power went out, I went searching for gasoline to fuel our small home generator," Mohammed Basheer, 21, a university student from Basra, says. "But even finding fuel became difficult as panicked residents rushed to buy up all the supplies."
Basheer says he eventually managed to buy two liters, barely enough to run his family's fan for a short time. It's not much of a solution in Basra's increasingly hot summers, he admits.
And while private generators may be helpful, potentially even life-saving, in times like this, they also have a dark side.
The huge, grimy machines are powered by diesel and emit carbon dioxide, pollutants, dirty wastewater and noise. They also use a lot of water for cooling. They "pose serious risks to public health and the environment, with extreme noise and air pollution," the Baker Institute's report confirms.
It's something of a vicious circle: Besides causing local pollution, private generators are likely also adding to environmental degradation and climate change, all of which makes Iraqis need them even more.
In Baghdad, student al-Ameri recalls how one family was forced to move out after a generator moved in next door.
The family had young children and the house was being shaken apart by the machine's vibrations, al-Ameri explained. "Thank goodness, it [the generator] is about a street away from our house," she told DW. "We can hear it when it's going, but mostly it doesn't disturb us."