Baghdad 5/5/2008

ENERGY AND HYDROELECTRIC POWER/ ROUND-TABLE ABOUT

ENERGY FOR AL MADA WEEK 

DR. ABDUL LATIF J. RASHID

H.E. THE MINISTER OF WATER RESOURCES

   Energy is one of the basic factors for the civilized societies needed by all society sectors. Energy is important for everyday life as it is used to operate factories, move various means of transportation and operate household instruments. To understand the power we must know its sources, uses and limitations. To develop good and effective policy toward it we must try to know the quantity of energy sources and its sustainability.  The answer for these questions is not easy because they depend on the future consequences for extracting these sources, energy prices and the consumption quantity.

The most important sources of the currently used and energy expected to be significant for mankind are:

1- Fossil Fuel (extracted from underground) is the coal, oil and natural gas and constitutes more than 90% of the energy used today. This type of energies exhaustible and causes environmental pollution problems so efforts are motivated to look for alternative sources of energy.

2- Mechanical Sources : They are waterfalls, dams, the movement of tides and winds.

3- Solar Energy : This type of energy can be used for direct boiling for water, heating and cooking. It can also be directly converted into electrical energy through solar cells.

4- Geothermal Energy : This energy can be extracted from high temperature inside the earth.

5- Biomass or biofuel or Ethanol: is the energy that is obtained from animal and agricultural wastes and agricultural production such as maize.

6- Hydrogen gas : It represents an important kind of fuels and is projected to have a big role in providing energy in the future.

7- Nuclear energy: is the energy which is generated from nuclear fission in nuclear reactors.

The energy and its sources are classified according to their renewal and sustainability to:

1- Conventional energy : This type of energy can not be manufactured or re-compensated in a short time and it includes coal, petroleum, metals, natural gas and chemicals.

2-Renewable Energy : It is inexhaustible energies and includes wind, air, solar, water, waves, groundwater and biomass energies.

    It is not expected to have a shortage in energy sources (oil, gas and coal ) in the first half of this century. The existing reserves which are confirmed of fossil fuels are sufficient for many coming decades. When the reserves of oil will be exhausted, we can resort to the enormous potential of non-conventional sources of oil and gas especially after the developing its production methods and generating electricity directly from them.

   Furthermore, the coal reserves are very large doubly exceed the other conventional and non-conventional  sources of oil and gas. The applied technologies of coal reached the conclusion that coal can be used to generate electricity through converting it into oil and gas which in turn will reduce the harmful gases emitting from coal.

    The increasing demand on oil, its high prices and as a big source for polluting environment, makes the world think of other new and alternative sources. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, dams gained large prosperity as they are constructed by many countries to generate electricity which makes it easy to control and transfer to long distances away from its sources of production, its clean source and cheapness. The limited power produced by dams forced specialists to think of other sources for energy.

    The nuclear energy appeared in North America, Europe, China and other countries as a big competitor for oil in generating electric power. Water is a main source to produce electrical energy reaching 18% of world production (up to 2002). In all cases, electrical energy is considered a main source of renewable energy and it is expected to grow faster in the coming years.

   Concern over energy has started effectively and seriously after amending oil prices in the end of 2003. In the United States, researches were concerned about research and development matters until late eighties of the last century when European countries began focusing on technologies than on researches. The industrial nations' production of the currently renewable energy has reached to 6% of the total production of which hydro power represents more than (50%). As expected, the  production of renewable energy in Europe will reach to more than (8%) of the total production in 2010.

   Although the countries of the Middle East, particularly Iraq are rich sources of solar energy, use of this source are still very limited due to several reasons including the availability of oil and its derivatives in the most countries of the Middle East as well as the slow pace of technological development in this field. There have been some attempts to establish generating stations for Electric power from solar energy by reflecting mirrors but these techniques are still in its early stages beside its futile economically at least for the present time.

   The cost of wind energy (renewable energy) ranging between (4-5) cents per kilowatt/hour (because winds are available in the air and ready to use). The cost of conventional energy per kilowatt/hour is (2-3) cents if gas turbines are used (because the price of gas is USD 5 per million BTU).

   Many European countries which are members of the European Union had taken numerous actions to reduce gases emitting from them through imposing taxes and providing financial support for their industrial firms as well as encouraging alternative energy. The most active countries in this field are Scandinavian, Britain and Germany. The procedures taken by the British government in this field are as follows :-

1-The climate change taxes.

2-Carbon taxes.

3-The Energy taxes and pricing of oil derivatives.

   In spite of all the world's concern over renewable energy (outside the conventional energy-biomass) as a clean and alternative energy that can be used in the future instead of fossil energy, all signs indicate that renewable energy will not be able to play this role even in the distant future due to the availability of fossil energy in large quantities enough for the world until the end of this century . The great difficulties facing the renewable energy technology resulted from its scattering, non-continuous and the limitation of its efficiency and the high cost of investment in this field. But there are certain uses in which renewable energy can play main role like supplying electricity to rural, poor and remote areas. The cost of electricity production from wind energy is in continuous decline and that makes it more competitive but its intermittent nature prevents this energy from playing the main role in producing electricity until the far future .

Hydroelectric power in Iraq :-

   The electric power generated from water energy is called the hydroelectric power because the moving water contains stored natural energy. The purpose of building any dam is to keep water in the valley which makes a lake and this will allow stored water to flow through the tunnels at the bottom of the Dam where the force of the flowing water moves the turbine and this is how we get benefit from the stored water.

    Iraq was concerned with water energy as an efficient source for generating electric power since the 1950s. Iraq now has five large dams containing hydro power stations and the first completed project in this field are Dokan and Darbandikhan Dams in Kurdistan Region in Sulaimaniyah province. The first dam is 360 m long and 116.5 m high was constructed on Lower Zap river (one of the Tigris River tributaries). It stores 6.8 billion m³ and contains a hydroelectric station that generating 400 megawatts. The second dam which is 445 m long and 128 m high was constructed on Diyala River with storage capacity of 3 billion m³. It also contains a hydroelectric plant with a design capacity of 240 megawatts. As for Mosul Dam, it is considered the largest Iraqi dam in terms of capacity aiming at storing water and generating hydroelectric power. This dam is located on the Tigris River in Ninawah province. It is a 3650 m long and 113 m high and stores 11.11 billion m³ with a design capacity reach to 750 megawatt/hour. Hemrin Dam lies in Diyala province on the Diyala River. This dam is 3360 m long at the top of the dam, 53 m high, with water storage capacity of 2.04 billion m³ and the capacity of its hydroelectric station is 50 megawatt. Another dam was constructed; it is Haditha Barrage located on river stream in Anbar province. It is of 8923 m long and 57 m high with water storage capacity of 8.28 billion m³ and design capacity of 660 megawatt. There are three small hydro power stations in Iraq; the first one has been established on Samara Barrage with a capacity of 75 megawatt. The second one on Al Hindiya Barrage with a design capacity of 15 megawatt/hour. The third one on A1 Kufa Barrage and it is the smaller hydroelectric stations with a design capacity of 5 megawatt/hour. The economic revenues of water resources projects associated with energy can be calculated through knowing quantity of produced hydroelectric power to the total electric power and through the great importance of these projects. It is possible to account the sums these projects provide by accounting the cost of production per unit of electricity and multiplying this cost in the number of product hydroelectric units and in this way we can estimate the funds were the government should be spent to produce electrical energy alternative to the hydroelectric energy.

The produced hydroelectric power:-

   Many factors affect the production of energy of hydroelectric stations which makes it difficult to continue the production in one pace particularly in circumstances Iraq pass through. Water Levels stored in the lakes dams affect the produced energy; whenever the water levels reduce the product energy is also reduced and vice versa. Therefore, the produced Energy is not fixed during one year, as it is not fixed over the years. The security situations has also a big impact on the quantity of produced energy since the crash of electric transmission lines leads to the non- withdrawal of the produced energy from the plants which caused less production.

   As shown in above Figure, the generated hydroelectric power decreased dramatically in 1999 compared with the year of 1998, which lasted three years until 2001. Storage level in dams decreased as a result of water resources scarcity that Iraq suffered from. In spite of the production improvement in (2002-2004), water levels decreased again in 2005 in addition to the sabotage in the electric energy transmission networks which prevented the conduction of energy to the consumer and therefore reduced production. And to know what is provided by the hydroelectric power generated economically, we can multiply the Annual production of the cost of production per unit. In other words, it is possible to determine the value of hydroelectric power in dollars by multiplying the cost of production per unit of electrical energy by the number of hydroelectric product units, and as it shown in Table number (1).

   As a sample, the production of Dokan and Darbandikhan Dams can be calculated and thus the production reach to (330 megawatt/hour) which is about half of their design capacity. If their revenues are calculated starting from their construction until now (which makes about 47years ago) assuming that their production is stable at this value, we will get about (135867600 megawatt) of energy. By assuming that the cost of production it is the same cost of 2006, then the value of this energy is about USD (600) million. Knowing that these two dams are not the largest dams in Iraq.

  Finally, we can demonstrate other benefit of hydroelectric stations built on the dams and it's the decrease of operating cost. If we compare the cost of production in the offices of electric power production in Iraq, we will find that the least cost production is in the North production Directorate, which contains the largest dams and hydroelectric  stations.

Table (1) the development of the generated hydroelectric power

The percentage of hydroelectric  power out of the total generated energy:-

   The production of electric power in Iraq is performed by the power plants distributed all over Iraq, as well as in places where large electric loads are centralized and in areas where the requirements of these stations like fuel and water are provided. These stations are divided into three types:-

1. Steam stations.

2. Gas stations.

3. Hydroelectric stations.

  These stations produce electric power to satisfy the demands 24 hours a day and continuously. The steam stations contribute largely in the production of electric power followed by gas stations then by hydroelectric stations where the production of hydroelectric stations depend on the availability of water resources.

   The percentage of produced hydroelectric power in Iraq to the total electric power is relatively a large proportion, which range between (30.8%) to (17.5%) in (1996-2006). As shown before, the production of hydroelectric energy declined in 1999 up to 2001. Therefore, its percentage out of the total produced energy has reduced as well form (28.5%) in 1998 to (20.8%) in 1999 and (17.1%) in 2000 and 2001 respectively.

   Since 2002, this percentage has begun to rise to be (19.5%). Because the hydroelectric stations do not require fuel in 2003 the hydroelectric power production was increased at the time when the total energy production was declined. The decline in  water levels and security situation surrounding the power transmission lines has affected the production of hydroelectric power which its percentage of the total energy reach to (24%) and (20%) then (19%) in the last  three years, as shown in the table(2).

Table (2): The  percentage of hydroelectric power production to the total electric power