The Washington-based global energy platform Attaqa warned in its latest report on Sunday that Iraq’s electricity crisis is set to become very severe by summer 2026.
According to the platform, the expected deficit is mainly due to Iraq's heavy structural dependence on Iranian gas imports, which remain largely unstable due to recent political tensions and the outbreak of regional war.
The persistent gap between supply and demand continues to affect the country's electricity grid.
And according to the report of the "Energy", the production of electricity in Iraq until the end of January 2026 amounted to about 29 GW, but the platform indicated that the country needs about 40 GW to meet the basic national demand.
To address this persistent deficit, the Iraqi government has turned to diversification strategies, including solar power.
And the "energy" platform reported that Iraq plans to produce 7,500 megawatts of electricity through 15 solar energy projects, which are implemented in direct cooperation with the US company "General Electric" and the German company "Siemens".
But experts quoted by the platform warned that these initiatives need several years of continuous work, and will not be able to resolve the immediate crisis before peak demand in the summer.
Growing Supply Gap Before Summer
The fragility of Iraq’s energy infrastructure has been greatly exacerbated by recent macroeconomic shocks. And according to the report of the “Energy”, the efforts to connect the Iraqi electricity network to neighboring countries are still continuing, but technical and financial obstacles have become a major obstacle.
The state's financial capacity to manage the crisis has also been severely damaged. The platform confirmed that due to the war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz on February 28, 2026, Iraqi oil revenues have decreased by about 90%.
According to the "report", this catastrophic drop in national income has caused a major obstacle for the government to provide the necessary budget for emergency fuel purchases. As a result, Iraqi citizens remain highly vulnerable to fluctuations in the supply of imported fuel.
And Iranian gas exports to Iraq fell to 15 million cubic meters per day last week, compared to previous levels of 20 million cubic meters, the platform reported.
Reliance on Iranian gas
The roots of the current crisis lie in a long-standing structural dependence on Tehran. Before the escalation of the military conflict, Iraq relied on Iranian gas to generate about 30 to 40 percent of its electricity. The fragility of this arrangement has been highlighted by international political shifts before the war.
In March 2025, the United States ended the sanctions waiver that allowed Iraq to import electricity directly from Iran.
And according to the Associated Press, Washington refused to renew the exemption as part of the "maximum pressure" campaign on Tehran, which raised immediate fears of power outages in Baghdad.
Meanwhile, Reuters reported that Iraqi energy officials had warned that the policy change could reduce daily electricity production by up to a third if gas imports were also threatened.
Even before the effects of the war, Iranian supplies were unreliable. And Reuters reported in December 2025 that Iranian gas flows were completely halted due to technical problems on the Iranian side, causing the loss of 4,000 to 4,500 megawatts from the Iraqi network.
Similar outages occurred in January and February 2026, which the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity attributed to the local need for heating in Iran during cold weather.
And in that period, Kurdistan 24 reported that these interruptions forced the country to strictly regulate cargo and emergency measures.
Impact of war and infrastructure damage
The situation deteriorated sharply with the outbreak of the U.S.-Israel war against Iran in February 2026. Direct targeting of Iran's energy infrastructure has had immediate consequences for Iraq's electricity grid.
On March 18, following reports of Israeli strikes on Iran's massive South Pars gas field, supplies to Iraq were completely halted.
And according to Reuters, which quoted the spokesman of the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity, Ahmed Moussa, that this stop led to the immediate exit of about 3,100 megawatts from service.
And Moussa told the official news agency, as quoted by Reuters, "As a result of developments in the region, Iranian gas flows to Iraq have stopped completely," and despite a partial resumption days later, supplies remained sharply low.
And Reuters pointed out that the flows resumed at only five million cubic meters per day, less than a tenth of the contracted quantities, which contributed to the stability of the network temporarily at about 14,000 megawatts.
Local reports showed the scale of these cuts.
And in an article dated April 4, 2026, Kurdistan 24 quoted ministry officials confirming a complete halt in supplies to southern Iraq and sharp cuts in central regions, directly linking these disruptions to damage to Iranian energy facilities.
Efforts to diversify energy sources
As summer approaches, the gaps are expected to widen further. And by late April, an earlier Kurdistan 24 report warned of imminent power outages over the summer.
According to the same reports, the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity projected a huge deficit of 27,000 megawatts during peak demand periods, with Iranian gas imports falling to 18 million cubic meters per day against a need of nearly 50 million cubic meters.
To alleviate this deficit, the Iraqi authorities have had to rely more on expensive and polluting liquid fuels.
As Reuters noted in previous coverage, Baghdad has begun to look for alternatives such as importing gas from Qatar and Oman, but these options have not been realized to the level required to compensate for Iranian quantities.
And despite Iraq's attempt to increase its domestic gas production to end its dependence on external sources, experts quoted by the "Energy" platform believe that this plan will not provide short-term solutions.
Overlapping aging power plants, domestic gas burning, and severe financial constraints keep production well below peak demand levels.
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