The UAE office of Austria’s ILF Consulting Engineers has been awarded an estimated $7.5m contract to provide project management consultancy (PMC) services for a power plant project in Iraq.

ILF will manage the conversion of the 500MW Amara power plant into a combined-cycle facility, increasing its capacity by up to 250MW.

The client for the scheme is the local Raban al-Safina, which is developing the Samara plant as an independent power project (IPP).

The project is part of Iraq’s plan to upgrade several power plants to combined-cycle facilities to increase efficiency and try and reduce the supply-demand gap that continues to leave residents and businesses without power for significant periods.

In August 2015, Iraq’s Electricity Minister Qassem al-Fahdawi said peak demand in the summer had reached 21,000MW, while peak output was only 13,400MW.

In January 2016, the US’ GE was awarded contracts worth a total of $1bn to boost electricity capacity in Iraq.