Necessity drives Iraq’s decarbonisation plans
Chronic, acute power shortages are spurring efforts to develop renewables and capture flared gas
Iraq’s oil minister Ihsan Ismail pledged on Sunday to develop 10GW of solar capacity by 2030. Despite his admirable ambition, this volume appears improbable. The country had only 216MW installed at end-2019, cancelled its first utility-scale solar tender the same year amid political instability, and has neither the funds nor the foreign investment environment to support such an ambitious buildout. Nonetheless, the lack of operational domestic gas supplies and acute deficiencies in the existing power generation infrastructure are providing compelling incentives to both leverage the country’s year-round sunshine and accelerate flare gas-capture projects. Iraq is thereby adopting emissions-redu
Also in this section
28 March 2025
The massive expansion of the Northern Lights project in Norway is the clearest sign yet that the European oil and gas companies mean business when it comes to CCS
27 March 2025
Awards celebrate global innovation, leadership and achievement across the energy sector’s people, projects, technologies and companies.
20 March 2025
While advanced economies debate peak fossil fuel demand, billions of people still lack access to reliable and affordable energy, especially in the Global South
14 March 2025
Ignoring questions of sustainability will not make the problems they focus on go away
