Iraq makes nearly five times the electricity it made in 2000, and still cannot keep the lights on in summer. Follow the power from the fuel to the plug, and most of it never arrives.
62%62%
of the electricity Iraq made or bought in 2023 was lost before it reached a consumer: lost in the wires, or taken off the grid without being paid for — the highest of any country in the World Bank’s data. That is 93.8 terawatt-hours, more than all of Iraq’s gas-fired power stations made that year.
01
From the fuel to the plug
What the power was made from, and where it went. Pick a year; point at a flow to read it.
2023 · 152 TWh supplied · 93.8 TWh lost (62%) · 58.0 TWh reached consumers · point at a flow to read it
MADE OR BOUGHT
Gas75.7 TWh
Oil and other fuels67.6 TWh
Dams1.4 TWh
Solar0.4 TWh
Imported6.8 TWh
WHERE IT WENT
Lost on the way93.8 TWh
Reached consumers58.0 TWh
Generation by fuel and net imports: Ember. Losses: the World Bank’s transmission and distribution losses (from the IEA), which by its definition include theft, applied to everything supplied. Years are drawn where both sources have them; each to its own total.
02
More power, still burning oil
Generation went from 31.9 TWh in 2000 to 150 TWh in 2024. Gas now makes 53% of it; oil and other fuels still make 45%. Sun and dams make almost nothing. Imports — mainly from Iran — fill some of the gap.
Gas
Oil and other fuels
Dams
Solar
Imported
03
Lost on the way
The share of electricity that never reaches a paying consumer, every year the World Bank has it. It was 67% in 2019 and 62% in 2023. Building power stations does not fix a grid that loses more than half of what they make.
04
The gas that burns instead
The gas Iraq flared at its oil fields in 2024 could have made about 96 TWh — more than every gas-fired power station in the country made that year. Burned, not used →
Flared gas could make95.9 TWh
Gas power stations made79.3 TWh
Imported7.1 TWh
HOW THESE NUMBERS ARE MADE
Generation, by fuel, and imports — Ember’s yearly electricity data, compiled from the EIA, IEA and national sources. “Oil and other fuels” is Ember’s “other fossil”: in Iraq, crude, fuel oil and diesel. The series →
Losses — the World Bank’s electric power transmission and distribution losses, % of output (IEA), which include theft. Applied here to generation plus net imports. The series →
Flared gas as power — 4 TWh per billion cubic metres, the World Bank’s rule of thumb; an upper bound. The working →
“Mainly from Iran” is the desk’s description of the imports; Ember gives only the net total.