Greece’s Metka has been awarded a $1bn contract to build the 1,642MW Al-Anbar power plant, located in western Iraq.

The contractor received a letter of award in the last week of April. The duration of the project is scheduled to be 32 months. The Greek firm will use steam generators purchased from the US’ GE in 2008. The client for the project is the Electricity Ministry.

Iraq is facing a severe shortage of power capacity in the short term. Total installed capacity is 7,500MW and peak demand in the summer of 2013 is expected to reach 16,000MW.

At MEED’s Iraq Energy Projects conference in Dubai in March, Alaa Disher Zamil, director-general and adviser for production affairs at the Electricity Ministry, said it is planning to spend $27bn on electricity projects by 2017 in an effort to expand the country’s power capacity.