A high-rise Central Bank Tower under construction in Baghdad. A new port in Basra. A transborder road network that could be the next gateway between Asia and Europe. At construction sites across Iraq, cranes and backhoes are marking a new chapter in the country’s future: After a period of conflict and unrest, Iraq is moving forward to reclaim its economic potential.

The ambitious infrastructure projects have been accompanied by a surge in electricity consumption. Although production in Iraq grew by more than 300% between 2000 and 2022, demand continues to outstrip supply. In response, the Iraqi government and Ministry of Electricity (MoE) and their partners are adding thousands of megawatts (MW) of electricity a year, using technologies that also reduce the overall energy intensity of the nation’s grid.

“We’re working to help Iraq get every kilowatt of power its people need,” says Darius Zanjani, the head of engineering, procurement, and construction partnering at GE Vernova, one of the MoE’s partner companies.

Power to the People

In 2017, Zanjani traveled to northern Iraq to assess a power plant that had not been operating at full capacity. As a result, the MoE was calling on GE Vernova to help restore the plant’s full generating capacity, bringing back reliable electricity to the surrounding cities and towns.

One afternoon while working on that project, Zanjani and his team were on their way back to the hotel after a long day at the plant. Having skipped lunch due to their tight schedule, they decided to stop at an ice cream shop.

As a colleague translated, Zanjani struck up a conversation with the shop owner, who asked what had brought them to Iraq. He explained that they were engineers at GE Vernova and were helping to plan repairs to a power plant in the area.

“Ah, God will bless you for this,” the owner said. The ice cream was on the house.

“That’s when I realized the true impact of what we were doing,” Zanjani says.

The project, part of a broader MoE effort to rebuild the country’s power infrastructure and bolster the long-term reliability and stability of its grid, is one of many GE Vernova has supported since its technology was first installed in Iraq in 1965. With more than 200 employees in the country, over 95% of whom are Iraqi, the company has collaborated closely with the MoE to reduce outages and expand availability even during the most challenging times and in the most challenging locations.

“The road hasn’t been easy, but we’re making progress,” Zanjani says. “The resilience of the Iraqi team has kept us going.”

Taking Stock

For years, GE Vernova had been supplying the plant with spare parts for its GE Vernova turbines. Now the MoE, as part of its long-term energy strategy, hoped the company could also rehabilitate some of the units. That sort of project — called a complex upgrade — is the province of GE Vernova’s services team in Zurich, Switzerland, where Zanjani was a lead project engineer at the time. When Zanjani’s manager offered him the assignment, he accepted immediately.

But before engineers and technicians could begin repairs, the services team needed to inspect the site. During the height of the instability, operators had done what was necessary to keep the power flowing, which often meant buying third-party replacement components and hiring local contractors to maintain the equipment. Now Zanjani and his co-workers needed to run a full assessment to learn what measures the operators had taken and find out how well the plant was functioning.

As they assessed the site over the course of several days, under MoE supervision, Zanjani grew more and more amazed at the effort the local teams had undertaken to keep the lights on — both the Iraqi GE Vernova technicians who serviced the equipment and the operations crew who made the most of their resources. Many were longtime employees and had manned the plant under the most difficult circumstances and conditions.

“Our Iraqi colleagues were committed to doing their best to maintain power supply during tough times,” he says. “And today they are even more driven to work together to rehabilitate the plant and expand secure and reliable power across the country.”

A More Secure Energy Future

Now head of the new business partnering team, Zanjani continues to try to map out the next steps with the MoE and other stakeholders. When the project moves through the pipeline, his team’s detailed site assessment — and the personal connections they forged with their Iraqi colleagues — will ensure engineers can hit the ground running.

In the meantime, GE Vernova has been building on its 60-year track record of support for Iraq’s electricity infrastructure. In the past decade, the company has collaborated with the MoE to add 19 gigawatts (GW) of capacity, build 30 substations, and complete the first phase of the interconnection with the wider regional grid. Since 2015, GE Vernova and MoE upgrades and maintenance work have secured the reliable supply of more than 7 GW of existing capacity throughout Iraq. GE Vernova has also facilitated more than $3 billion in funding for Iraq’s energy sector since 2015.

In February, GE Vernova and the MoE completed upgrades to 46 gas turbines at 12 power plants as part of their plan to add up to 500 MW to the national grid before this summer. The company is also helping the MoE rehabilitate and modernize Iraq’s transmission and distribution network, including the newly energized 132-kilovolt Al Qaim Saada substation. Nearly 400 kilometers (250 miles) from Baghdad in the far western desert region, the facility is a crucial part of a historic interconnection with Jordan that expands Iraq’s ability to import electricity to meet rising demand.

As geopolitical uncertainty continues to disrupt global energy supplies, efforts like these are an increasingly important part of GE Vernova’s mission to reinforce energy security around the world. With the effects of climate change compounding the dangers of cyber- and physical attacks, reliable, resilient infrastructure has never been more critical.

For Zanjani, back home in Zurich, the work in Iraq has also brought a new perspective.

“The colleagues I met in Iraq could see how their work was making life better for their families, their communities, and their country,” he says. “Now, no matter what I’m working on, I know what it means when we say GE Vernova is providing the energy to change the world.”