Ministries study solar charging stations for electric taxis

BAGHDAD — The environment and transport ministries are examining solar-powered charging stations for electric vehicles under a green taxi project, in a country whose grid produces about a third of the electricity it needs.

The ministries have discussed using garages run by the General Company for Private Transport Management, said Abbas Imran Mousa, director general of planning at the Transport Ministry. Charging from solar rather than the grid is the point: generation has fallen to about 21,000 MW against summer demand the Electricity Ministry puts at 55,000 to 60,000.

The project is the first stage of a wider plan to bring electric vehicles into Iraq’s transport system, said Haider al-Daraji of the Environment Ministry’s Carbon Economics Company. Any move to replace conventional vehicles would have to be gradual so as not to burden citizens or transport workers, he said, with later phases depending on how many vehicles enter service, charging readiness, running costs and actual reductions in fuel use and emissions.

A working taxi would need at least 40 kilowatt-hours a day, which takes roughly 10 kilowatts of solar panel to supply.

Gas sells at a subsidised 450 dinars a litre in federal Iraq, so fuel a taxi does not burn is a subsidy the treasury does not pay.

Neither ministry has said how many vehicles the first phase covers, what it would cost, where the stations would go or whether storage is included.