Winter 2009–2010 7 In Iraq they say “safya dafya,” meaning everything is ine – literally, “sunny and warm.” Safya dafya could also describe the forecast for solar power develop- ment in Iraq, as the nation’s abundant sunshine and lat, open land near population centers make it one of the best locations in the world for solar power. But solarity and geography are only one aspect of Iraq’s solar power opportunity. The impact of war, years of underinvestment in the power sector, and rapidly increasing electricity demand have created a shortage of—and desperate need for—reliable power. As a result, Iraq’s Ministry of Electricity, supported by international donors, is investing in rehabilitating and upgrading the electricity grid, and plans over the next ive years to build 16 plants with a combined capacity of 3,500 megawatts (MW). BY PATRICK DOYLE AND KHALIDAH JAAFAR Iraq Has an Opportunity to Become a Solar Leader A DAI study shows there has never been a more opportune time for Iraq to take advantage of both its upcoming energy projects and vast solar resources to build a solar power plant. Speciically, our analysis shows, the country should make at least one of its new plants a large-scale, combined fossil fuel-solar thermal power plant, also called an integrated solar combined cycle (ISCC) plant. The most attractive location for such a plant would be in Al Anbar, the vast desert province in central-western Iraq, though six of Iraq’s seven planned plants have potential. In our efforts to tackle climate change, “step technologies” that help us transition from fossil fuel to cleaner energy will be crucial. But while global investments in solar technolo- gies are growing, converting solar energy into power remains many times more expensive than fossil-based power. The key to bring- ing down the costs of solar technologies is to increase the total installed capacity worldwide by building more plants. Lessons learned through this process, and the economies of scale realized, should continue to reduce costs. In addition, rising oil and natural gas prices will likely make it easier for solar to achieve “grid parity”—the point at which solar electricity is cost-competitive with electric- ity from conventional sources (see Figure 1, overleaf). This article focuses on large-scale solar thermal power in Iraq, but there are also opportunities for photovoltaic (PV) systems that use semiconductor materials to directly convert sunlight into electricity. Power from PV systems is currently more expensive than large-scale concentrating solar power, but the unreliability of Iraq’s central grid has spawned an industry of private providers of diesel- fueled power to small, distributed micro-grids. Despite the use of subsidized diesel, the costs of this fossil-fuel power are very high. In fact, the “levelized” cost of power—which takes into account all investment, fuel, operations, and disposal costs—of a small solar PV system is less than that charged by the private provid- ers. Individual Iraqis remain reluctant to make the high initial investment in solar panels. How- ever, the market is ripe for distributed, small- scale PV as well as large-scale solar. Solar thermal plant (parabolic trough). PAGE 8