From gas flaring to renewable flexibility: energy-adequacy-constrained decarbonization pathways for Iraq

Abstract

Renewable-capacity planning can overstate decarbonization in a supply-constrained system because new clean generation may initially restore unmet electricity service rather than displace fossil output. This study develops a public-evidence-constrained, service-first planning framework for Iraq. Photovoltaic (PV), wind, and battery energy storage system (BESS) capacities are optimized within fixed multi-sector service trajectories and revalidated on all 8,784 hours of a reconstructed 2024 chronology for the 15-governorate federal-Iraq study area (Federal15). The central modeled 2050 state contains 34.745 GW PV, 8.314 GW wind, and 37.323 GW / 149.292 GWh BESS. Annual energy not served (ENS) is about 0.095%, but 66 shortage hours remain and peak hourly ENS reaches 13.115 GW. Only 4 of 19 non-base fixed-path stresses satisfy every annual ENS limit without re-optimization; importantly, the smallest failing exceedance is only 0.00098 percentage points, whereas severe cases exceed a limit by more than 2 percentage points. Re-optimizing the 2050 case with 2–8 h batteries keeps required storage energy near 149–154 GWh while substantially changing battery power, demonstrating that the four-hour case is an architecture assumption rather than an independently inferred optimal duration. The results are conditional planning diagnostics, not forecasts of Iraq’s eventual build-out.