Iraq’s Electricity Ministry has signed a $1.2bn deal with a Canadian firm for the construction power stations in the western Anbar and central Salah al-Din provinces.

Canadian Alliance for Power Generation Equipment (Capgent) will build 10 plants with a total capacity of 1,000MW to meet local demand in the provinces, according to a spokesman for the ministry, AFP newswire reports.

The plants will be installed over the next year and Iraq will have to repay the cost of construction within two years of the plants coming online.

The Electricity Ministry says it needs $4.5bn of investment each year until 2015 to build enough power generation capacity to meet demand and eliminate power blackouts as demand rises to 16,000MW from 12,500MW currently (MEED 14:6:11).