Rebuilding Iraq with Alternative Energy Solutions

Iraq is blessed with one of the worlds largest reserves of crude oil. But sadly, the country has little or no refining capability. The lack of petroleum products makes it difficult to run generators and other equipment that produce reliable electricity. Consequently, every day, major cities and towns in Iraq suffer through prolonged power outages. This presents critical problems for high-security facilities, like border-crossing points, that need uninterrupted power but are so remote that they cannot be connected to the national power grid. Fortunately, the engineering arm J-7 of the Multinational Security Transition Command-Iraq MNSTC-I, in partnership with the United States Army Corps of Engineers, is funding and building alternative energy systems for these more remote locations. In particular, the MNSTC-I J-7 team has designed a unique, rugged system leveraging both solar panels and a large wind turbine -- affectionately referred to as energy in a box -- at one border-crossing location. There, the combination system will be connected to the appropriate switch gear, allowing either power source, or both, to generate electricity, depending on the environmental conditions.