Here’s the English translation of the news article, maintaining the original topic and context:
Title: 49,000 Generators in Iraq for Electricity Production… Pollution and Noise
Context:
Mohammed Hussein (54 years old) was forced to sell his house in the Presidency neighborhood, east of Baghdad, in the summer of 2023, after suffering from the noise and fumes of a diesel electricity generator adjacent to his house’s outer wall, which collapsed due to vibrations caused by its continuous operation as it supplied the neighborhood’s houses with electricity for monthly fees.
Mohammed moved to a new house he bought in the Dora area, south of the capital, without filing a complaint against the generator owner. He says he’s confident that tribal parties would intervene, as happens in similar cases, or the accused would take preemptive steps relying on his relationships with security personnel or militia members, and he would get nothing “except reproach and power cut to his house,” he says with a smile.
He adds, moving his hands left and right: “They might even hold me responsible for the collapse of my house’s wall and affecting the path of power lines, requiring me to pay them money.”
For three years, Mohammed suffered from the noise pollution caused by the electricity generator and the effects of its emissions on his family’s health, not to mention the pools of water mixed with diesel created by its engine cooling process in the alley. All these were reasons for him to look for another place to live in the capital, where national electricity is cut off for about 12 hours daily, despite successive governments spending 80 billion dollars to secure it over two decades, according to experts.
Mohammed’s suffering is the same as that of tens of thousands of residents living near 14,000 private diesel generators in Baghdad, and 49,000 generators operating on fossil fuel across Iraq’s governorates.
Iraqis have resorted to electricity generators for about three decades to secure additional hours of electricity, as the only alternative to fill the increasing supply deficit, after the destruction of infrastructure and power networks following the Second Gulf War, along with the aging of hydroelectric stations, population growth, and the expansion in the use of electrical appliances, especially air conditioners.
Successive governments have failed to address the problem despite establishing new production stations. The deficit continued due to doubled consumption, failure of some projects, and deterioration of transmission networks, forcing residents and business owners to use private generators to fill the gap.
However, the exhaust from these generators contributes significantly to environmental pollution and threatens the health of residents in nearby locations, according to specialists, especially since the high prices of diesel (gas oil) drive some generator owners to use heavy oil, which doubles the pollution rate and consequently health risks.
Added to this is the consumption of large amounts of water to cool generator engines, not to mention the oils they expel, along with the dangers resulting from millions of meters of random electrical connections between generation stations, houses, and shops.
Continuous Need
A report by the International Energy Agency/2019 indicates that Iraq’s electricity need is 40,000 megawatts to meet its needs excluding industrial ones, while its production capacity is estimated at about 32,000 megawatts, and it is unable to generate more than half of it, due to the inefficient transmission networks it owns.
Iraqi officials attribute part of the decline in electricity supplies, during some periods, to the stoppage of imported Iranian gas pumping, which operates stations producing 8,000 megawatts, about a third of the production of national electricity stations. However, they usually avoid talking about other reasons, primarily the corruption that caused the waste of billions of dollars in inefficient projects.
This deficit has kept the private generators market active, although most of them are old and their dilapidated engines emit black smoke (carbon particles) in addition to high noise, due to many owners’ non-compliance with using what is known as an engine silencer.
Besides the environmental and health harms these generators carry, they impose monthly financial costs on Iraqi citizens as fees for that service, ranging between 40 to 60 thousand dinars on average, which ultimately represent economic losses.
According to a survey conducted by the Central Statistical Organization of the Ministry of Planning, whose results were announced in March 2023, the total number of private generators throughout the country reached 48,533 generators, and “the total revenues achieved amounted to (3,479) billion Iraqi dinars monthly (equivalent to 2,300 million US dollars) distributed within the peak period at (2,105) billion dinars (1,385 million dollars) while outside the peak period it was (1,374) billion dinars (900 thousand dollars).
Some doubt these figures, believing that generator revenues exceed that, especially since Iraq’s population now exceeds the 40 million mark, and all residential units and small projects from shops, workshops, restaurants, and others depend on generators.
With 6 million and 700 thousand subscribers to private generator lines, according to official figures, if each subscriber pays monthly just 30 thousand dinars – which is the minimum figure for any subscription – it means that the amounts paid to generators exceed 200 billion dinars monthly.
In any case, the statistics of citizens’ recorded electricity expenses remain an indicator that the largest share of electricity sales revenues in Iraq goes to private generators instead of the Ministry of Electricity. The price of one ampere from private electricity generators subsidized by the state is 10 thousand dinars (7.60 dollars) for regular subscription (for limited hours per day) and 15-25 thousand dinars (11.45 to 19.08 dollars) for what is called the golden ampere (whose subscribers enjoy continuous electric current for 24 hours).
In a press statement by the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Planning for Technical Affairs, Maher Hammad Johan, made in 2023, he indicated that government collection of electricity fees provides only 6% of what the state spends annually on electric power, justifying the Ministry of Electricity’s lack of revenues enabling it to improve the power service.
Civil activist Moataz Majid says that the numbers of private generators are much larger than the figure estimated by official authorities “perhaps this figure (49 thousand) includes registered generators that take monthly fuel quotas from the Petroleum Products Department.”
He continues: “But in reality, every industrial or agricultural project or related to livestock, even if small, is equipped with an electricity generator and cannot do without it.”
Majid gives an example of this, saying that broiler chicken fields, freezing and cooling warehouses, feed factories, egg hatcheries, chicken slaughterhouses, other production factories, water stations, and others “all own their own electricity generators.”
Therefore, he suggests that their numbers could reach 100,000 generators, in addition to small gasoline-powered electricity generators, which he says are widely spread, all contributing to environmental pollution, as well as the financial costs imposed by their operation.
Environmental Damage
Ali Jaber, director of the Air Quality Monitoring Department at the Ministry of Environment, says that private generators “greatly harm the environment, as instead of emissions coming from one place, which are large electricity stations, they have spread over larger areas and inside cities.”
Jaber warns that inhaling polluted air poses a threat to human health in the short, medium, and long term, pointing out that the noticeable increase in “cancerous diseases and diseases related to the respiratory system is caused by pollution.”
He points out that getting rid of this pollution “requires capabilities, efforts, and detailed studies that are not available at the present time.”
Amidst the smoke that surrounds the place, and the noise that fills it, Karrar Abbas (39 years old), a worker at an electricity generator in central Baghdad, was busy cutting off the electricity from a citizen who was late in paying fees. He did so, then flipped through other lists of late payments, and said: “I also have a family, and I know very well the problems the generator causes for neighbors, but we have no solutions, this has been the country’s situation for more than thirty years.”
Karrar constantly faces angry citizens complaining about the generator’s waste, coming to its work site and arguing with him, especially those who suffer or have family members with allergies or who complain about the generator’s water turning into pools in the alley. He adds: “I understand their suffering well, but I stand helpless to do anything, I tell them that the only solution is to turn off the generator and in return, they won’t get electricity, then they fall silent and go on their way.”
The Global Center for Social Services, which is one of the civil society organizations, warned in a statement issued in early 2024, that 45% of Iraq’s population is at risk of diseases due to air pollution from emissions caused by electricity generators: “It is likely that cases of infections and environmental pollution will worsen in the coming years due to the poor quality of some generators and their non-compliance with technical and environmental specifications.”
The statement said that electricity generators of various sizes are spread in public places, on sidewalks, in residential neighborhoods, on the roofs of houses, institutions, factories, and places of worship “and they emit dangerous fumes 24 hours a day.”
The statement warned that generator emissions pollute the air with more than 40 toxic substances including many “carcinogenic or suspected carcinogenic substances,” and that such pollutants may lead to an increase in respiratory diseases and cardiovascular diseases.
The organization mentions that generator emissions cause acid rain that damages plants and poisons water bodies, warning that “diesel generators (the majority of generators in the country) generate emissions with a greater impact on climate than a natural gas-powered power plant.”
In its statement, the organization called for a national initiative to support energy and reduce emissions, and the necessity of obligating generator owners to place “carbon-purifying filters, and not to use heavy oil due to the environmental disasters it causes to society.”
Water Pollution and Waste
In light of the water crisis Iraq is experiencing due to climatic and regional-political factors such as water retention in Turkish and Iranian dams and unsustainable internal management, diesel electricity generators consume large amounts of fresh water.
The investigator conducted a statistic related to the use of water by generators, covering 15 generators in various areas of Baghdad, and found that each consumes 4,000 liters of water daily in the summer. Since the total number of generators in Iraq is 49,000 registered generators, this means that the total daily water consumption reaches 196 million liters of fresh water.
The percentage rises monthly to reach 5,880,000 million liters, which is a large amount taken basically from citizens’ quotas, because these generators use tap water coming from purification stations, then discharge it polluted with oils often without any treatment, and a large part of it reaches the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
Civil activist Salam Ghazi believes that the first measure that should be taken by authorities is to obligate electricity generator owners to use untreated water in the stations “especially since the generators’ work has been continuous for decades, and may continue for decades to come as well!”
He adds: “Just as generator owners buy fuel, they should buy water by tankers that are not purified in stations, because they basically run profitable projects, not a free public service, and thus they will not waste it, but will find ways to ensure repeated use of water, and the problem of discharging it and forming swamps in residential neighborhoods will be eliminated.”
He also called for monitoring how water used to cool generator engines is discharged, because “its environmental damage is doubled, and fines must be imposed on violators, but practically this does not happen at present.”
Noise Pollution
Zahraa (18 years old), a sixth-grade student from the 9th of April neighborhood, east of Baghdad, suffers from selective sound sensitivity syndrome, which is a state of excessive nervousness, disturbances, and mood swings when listening to loud sounds. This forces her not to go out to the house yard or even from her room due to the noise of the electricity generator near her family’s house.
She says while putting her hands on her ears, “I can’t concentrate on studying when the generator is working, so I feel very comfortable when the national current comes or the generator stops for some reason, and my joy increases when it breaks down and I pray with all my heart that it will never be fixed, and I prefer to stay in the heat and in the dark rather than hearing its sound.”
Commenting on Zahraa’s case, Hussein Al-Lami, who holds a PhD in psychology and philosophy, says that there is a relationship between noise pollution and deterioration of mental health, and explains: “Noise pollution causes pathological symptoms not only in humans, but even in animals and plants, as chicken egg production and milk for cows decrease and birds are forced to migrate, and it affects plant growth and the process of photosynthesis.”
Noise pollution is defined as a discordant mixture of unwanted continuous sounds, usually measured by sound level meters, and the decibel or logarithmic unit is the globally known unit for measuring sound and noise intensity.
Sound sensitivity syndrome is: “a condition in which a person suffers from hatred of annoying sounds, and for many sufferers, this condition may be so bad that it drives them to think about suicide,” says Dr. Hussein.
He points to the different effects of sounds from person to person “some may suffer from fatigue, nervous exhaustion, feeling of distress, rapid emotional impact, frequent complaints, and physiological nervous effects affecting production, which increase the rate of errors and decrease the ability to concentrate and perform mental and intellectual work.”
He mentions that the matter may worsen, leading to temporary or permanent hearing loss: “Some scientific studies have concluded that noise affects the mental ability of the individual, leading to mental stress and inability to comprehend and learn, so continuous exposure to the sounds of private generators poses a direct danger to those with selective sound sensitivity syndrome.”
The investigator received information from Brigadier General Firas Salim, director of the Environmental Police, stating that his department receives many complaints about the noise caused by generators, and on one occasion, a committee was formed to measure the noise pollution rate resulting from a diesel electricity generator, with a device that measures noise in decibels, in a modern residential complex in Baghdad.
He says about that: “The committee members tried repeatedly to measure the noise pollution rate there, but the device was unable to measure and stopped completely because the generator’s sound exceeded the allowable reading limit.”
According to the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, noise pollution is considered one of the increasing health problems, and they define noise pollution as “unwanted sound in the environmental medium that is likely to expose the individual to hearing impairment, headaches, fatigue and thus affect productivity and quality of life in general.”
The director of the Environmental Police believes that private generators are one of the most prominent sources of noise pollution in Iraq, along with the odors they emit, and says: “They emit sound waves that travel through the air and these waves can be measured using a sound level meter. Noise that exceeds 30 decibels causes psychological disturbances, and noise between 60 to 90 decibels causes psychological and nervous troubles and harms hearing, while those exceeding 120 decibels directly affect the cells of the nerve mass inside the ear.”
Dr. Raghad Wadood Al-Rifai, a specialist in environmental security at the High Commission for Human Rights, confirms the significant negative effects of noise, and even sees that private generators cause a set of “humanitarian and environmental” problems that have been monitored by the Commission’s teams working in Baghdad and the governorates.
She enumerates some of the problems that affect what she calls health and psychological rights: “Most of these generators do not contain a sound silencer, and their waste is discharged into the sewage network, and the problem of not choosing the location of most generators according to spatial standards, all of this makes their harms more than their benefits.”
Dr. Raghad assumes that private electricity generators should comply with national environmental laws, such as the Environment Protection and Improvement Law No. (27) of 2009, as well as the environmental determinants of the World Health Organization regarding sound levels to avoid noise with auditory effects, which are set for residential areas at about (50-55) decibels.
“If these determinants are exceeded, it causes hearing disabilities such as permanent and temporary hearing loss and physical harm, not to mention the psychological state and respiratory system problems and allergies in addition to their damages to the local environment.”
She points out that the Commission receives, according to its Law No. (53) of 2008, various complaints from individuals and civil society organizations related to human rights violations due to harmful emissions and noise pollution. But she does not clarify the procedures taken regarding them. She adds: “The citizen has the right to live in a safe, healthy environment, through the enforcement of rights according to national laws and the relevant institutional entity.”
Environmental Police
Due to the many environmental violations in Iraq, the Environmental Police was formed according to Internal System No. 1 of 2015, administratively linked to the Ministry of Interior, and technically to the Ministry of Environment. It exercises its role to protect and improve the environment through its various regulatory and executive agencies in coordination with other state agencies.
Among its tasks is “exercising the judicial arrest authority legally granted to police officers and commissioners regarding environmental crimes, receiving complaints and reports regarding environmental violations and referring them to the competent investigative judge according to the law and following up on their results.”
The director of the Environmental Police, Chemical Brigadier Firas Salim, says that the total number of subscribers to electricity lines provided by the 49,000 generators in Iraq is 6,700,665 subscribers, while the number of amperes supplied during one month reached (25,875,722) amperes, according to his department’s data.
He continues: “In addition to air pollution, an increase in pollutant concentrations caused by gasoline and diesel generators was observed, namely carbon monoxide – nitrogen oxides – sulfur oxides, resulting from gasoline generators at a higher rate than those resulting from diesel generators and more than the proposed national limit in some cases.”
He shows that diesel generators produce approximately (10%) of what gasoline generators produce in terms of carbon monoxide, and lead compounds are non-existent in diesel, but “we notice an increase in the amount of lead to more than the proposed national limit in the case of using a gasoline generator.”
Certainly, I’ll continue with the translation:
He completes the description of the generators’ polluting reality: “As for the group of suspended particles, we notice that their amount in the gasoline generator is less than in the diesel generator, as the main problem with diesel engines is smell and smoke. We cannot enumerate the pollutants resulting from generators as they disperse in the air, i.e., not fixed, but pollution can be measured by special devices near the generator, and most of them are carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur oxides.”
Regardless of the source of pollutants from gasoline or diesel, the director of the Environmental Police warns of the danger of generators on soil and plants alike, explaining: “The direct effect occurs when quantities of fuel spill on the soil during the filling process, which leads over days to the transformation of lands around generators into dead lands saturated with oil and oil spills to become polluted and unfit for agriculture.”

Ahmed Shaker (46 years old) owns a diesel electricity generator in the Hurriya area, west of Baghdad. He confirms that the water he uses to cool the generator’s engine is the one that comes through the tap water network, and he uses it around the clock, and his need for it increases with rising temperatures in the summer, confirming that he discharges the used water directly into sewage networks.
He also does not deny the leakage of some of the generator’s engine oil into the sewers and soil pollution: “This is normal, we change the oil regularly and its quantities are large, and the Baghdad Municipality has organized the process of disposing of used oils, as we collect them in barrels and they are sold to be reused later in another activity.”
Regarding the reason for the noise caused by generators, he says: “Some generators are old or do not have a sound silencer. As for me, and also all other generator owners, we are forced in the summer to remove the frame that encases the engine due to high temperatures, as making the engine exposed to air is good to reduce its heat, but in return, the noise increases.”
He points out that he compensates the families close to his generator for the damage that happens to them due to the generator’s sound or the smoke emitted from it, by granting each nearby house “three amperes of electricity for free.”
Social Service
Kazem Abdul Fahdawi, head of the Baghdad Generators Union, Al-Karkh sector, says that the union is an unofficial body, and the nature of its work focuses on meeting the demands of private generator owners: “Especially towards regulatory authorities to supply generators with the free gas oil quota, which is small.”
He mentioned that generator owners sometimes incur losses, as the price of one ampere of electricity in 2023 was set at 8,000 dinars (5.35 dollars), which led to them suffering losses due to the exorbitant price of fuel, especially in the summer when the hours of supplying citizens with electricity increase, indicating that this prompted them to announce a strike and turn off their generators.
However, this was met with severe government measures, by obliging them to place a meter that shows the number of operating hours for generators and the amount of energy supplied to citizens. At the beginning of 2024, a decision was issued by the Baghdad governorate “to collect financial dues for generators from subscribers at the end of the month and not at its beginning, with imposing legal penalties on violating generator owners ranging between fines and imprisonment,” says Al-Fahdawi.
Majid Abdul Salam (52 years old), a generator owner from southern Baghdad, believes that the segment of generator owners is oppressed in Iraqi society, and the damages caused by their generators are the responsibility of the state, not them.
He says: “We provide a great service, as we compensate for the state’s basic role in providing electricity, as it has not privatized this sector, and has not built sufficient stations, so our contribution has been large and effective since 1991, and instead of thanking us, encouraging us, and supporting us, we face criticism and constant attack from society and government institutions.”
He wonders about the government’s role in facing the effects of generators’ work, as the state knows that the presence of electricity generators will be prolonged and that environmental damages arise from their daily work, “so why hasn’t it developed plans to face those damages or mitigate them, through organizing a special law.”
He also calls for necessary measures to improve the work environment, such as connecting houses to generators through regular, non-random wires as is the case now, treating generator water and oils, and setting heights for exhaust pipes and certain degrees of noise that should not be exceeded.
He adds: “None of this happens, so the work of generators continues in a chaotic manner to the furthest extent.”
Assistant Professor Dr. Safaks Qasim Hadi from the Geography Department, College of Arts, University of Baghdad, pointed out in her research completed in 2022, that the deficit in the national electricity network reached 52% throughout Iraq, as a result of population increase, the significant rise in temperatures, and the corresponding large deficit in national energy networks, which increased the need for private generators.
The researcher observed other problems besides the environmental problems caused by generators, the most important of which is the problem of high and fluctuating prices. She says: “The price of the electricity ampere it supplies is not fixed and varies from season to season. In light of high temperatures and increased operation, it needs more fuel bought from the black market, so the ampere price is raised to compensate for that, a cost borne by the consumer.”
She adds to this the citizens bearing the costs of delivering electricity to their homes, shops, or workplaces: “They buy wires and plugs, which are additional burdens on them.” She confirms that the energy produced in power generation stations is “less costly and less polluting.”
The study proved that generators cause pollution of Baghdad’s air with large quantities of carbon oxide gas, sulfur oxide, and other harmful gases, and they also cause noise pollution for nearby houses, in the absence of strict control and laws that limit environmental and noise pollution in Iraq.
Here, the researcher emphasized activating the role of health and environmental control, and applying safety conditions for generator operation in line with international laws and the World Health Organization.
The researcher called for diversifying energy sources in the country, increasing power stations that work on gas instead of fossil fuel, and encouraging society to use energy-saving devices, which contributes to reducing the use of private generators until they are permanently stopped.
Thaer Jasim (25 years old), an employee at the Capital Municipality, lives in eastern Baghdad, is one of those who have been harmed by private electricity generators. He says: “Residents of houses adjacent to the generator, including myself, face constant blockage in sewage drains, as a result of the huge amounts of generator cooling water released into them, which is usually mixed with oils and fuel.”
He puts his index fingers in his ears, indicating the noise caused by the generator: “Our brains will explode, but we can do nothing about it.”
He looks at the generator, which had just started working and smoke rising from its exhaust: “These generators were found to solve the electricity problem, but they created many other problems, some of which threaten human health.”
He raises his voice, wiping sweat drops stuck on his forehead: “It’s a national disaster that has been going on for 30 years, and I don’t think I’ll live to see the day when it’s removed, and we enjoy electricity without pollutants and noise like humans in the rest of the world’s countries.”
• The investigation was completed under the supervision of the “NYREG” network within the environmental journalism project managed by the “Internews” organization.