Energy Environment and Economy

1. Introduction

Electricity is most demanding issues in the current era; its importance and significance are badly imagined when the actually it absent that means it is loading shedding. A functioning grid fade into the background of daily life, while it gone for the overnight, the most concern for the load-shedding or electricity absence is for the household, hospitals, and industry etc. (Sia Partners, 2024). 

The system Average interruption During Index (SAIDI) and system Average Interruption Frequency Index (SAIFI) are two of the standardized reliability biomarkers that are used to evaluate distribution and transmission operations, frequently in a formal manner. These benchmarks measure the duration and frequently of power outages for customers (Milsoft Utility Solutions, 2024). The total cost of unreliable power of society has been estimated to be in the tens of billions per years in certain countries and each unscheduled outage can cost a single major industrial customer tens of thousands of dollars ((Renewable Energy World, 2019).

There are a burning question raises it is unclear that whether these exact figures apply to Iraq, but the main idea is likely the same; an unstable electricity supply can cause serious economic problems. Iraq transmission network clearly also faces the problems, large parts of the electricity grid are in poor conditions because of decades of conflict lack of investment and repeated mismanagement. There is a evidences that around 40% of the electricity generated in Iraq is lost through technical and non-technical losses in the transmission and distribution systems (Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, 2020).

In the recent times, in the Iraq, it is documented that Iraq’s electricity has almost no extra power available to meet demand.  Power shortage old infrastructure and dependence on important electricity make the situation worse day by day (Baker Institute, 2025). In this situation, restoring electricity quickly and effectively after a fault becomes very important. It is no longer just a routine operational task but a key way for grid operation to improve electricity service in the short time periods while waiting for larger investments to improve the system for electricity management for the essential community for important purposes.

 Al-Musaiyyib District, in Babil Governorate, faces the same electricity problems as other parts of Iraq which causes severe effects in social and economic and financial life. However, local factors make the situation more challenging. Population growth, Urban development, and the growth of different economic activities are increasing the electric demand. The existing transmission system may not have been to handle the growing demand.

This problem is not limited to AL-Musayyib. In other parts of Iraq, researchers studied 400 kV bus bar performance and found that increasing electricity demand and unstable voltage were closely related to declining power system sustainability. They used computer simulations and three other important measures like SAIFI, SAIDI, and expected energy not supplied to measure the problems which is associated with the electricity supply (Mohsen et al., 2024).  Recent other studies also identified old infrastructure and repeated power system instability considered as a major problem which is also affecting electricity reliability across Iraq (Al-Rikabi et al., 2026).

Therefore, it is unlikely that Al-Musayyib is free from these problems. In fact, the district rapid growth suggests that electricity demand and pressure on the existing power system may increase further.

Restoration strategy is an important area of power of system engineering. It focuses on how to restore electricity supply after a major power failure occur. Basic principles of power system analysis and design are explained by Glover et al. (2017), while Adibi (2000) and Sforna (2016) discuss methods for restoring power systems after major power supply disturbances. More recent studies showed these improved methods with advanced switching and network reconfiguration techniques to restore electricity more quickly (Zhang et al., 2020).

It has been found that power grids in North America, Europe, and China, are usually available with detailed system data and monitoring facilities.

Utilization of this method Al-Musayyib district would be difficult. Because the infrastructure is older, limited, and different operating practices. Therefore, we recommend to study how restoration methods can be applied effectively to the Al-Musayyib electricity network.

We demonstrated a viable method in this study. We determined how an existing procedure perform in Al-Musayyib’s transmission network under different types of faults. We also determined which factors most affect restoration, including response time, fault-isolation methods, and the availability of alternative power routes. Our objective to use the developed methods in local electricity operators and other researchers to study this development further in Iraq to improve restoration power.

2. Methods

2.1 Study Design and SettingWe used a descriptive analytical design for this study. We combined a retrospective review of outage records with simulation-based failure analysis of the electricity supply network. In this study we have conducted the transmission

Figure 1. Results of the service restoration simulation. Restoration time (minutes) for each simulated fault scenario under the current standard operating procedure and the alternative-routing procedure.

Figure 2. Comparison of performance indicators before and after applying the alternative-routing restoration procedure. (a) Time-based and count-based indicators. (b) Percentage-based indicators. Bars show values under the current procedure (before) and the proposed procedure (after).

network serving Al-Musayyib District, in the Babil Governorate, Iraq in the period from January 2025 to June 2026.

2.2 Network and Population Characteristics

The transmission network under study comprised 4 substations at 132/33 kV, serving approximately 150,000 subscribers across 12 feeder lines. A single-line diagram of the network (Figure 1) was constructed from utility 

records and field surveys to establish baseline topology.

2.3 Data Collection

Outage and restoration records were obtained from Babil Electricity Distribution Directorate covering the study period. For each recorded event, the variables fault type and cause, fault location, time of occurrence, response time (time to first crew/control-center action), isolation method used, restoration method (e.g., manual switching, automated reclosing, alternate feed), total restoration duration, and number of subscribers affected were determined. Outage records that lacked complete restoration-time was not selected. The final sample number was 120 events for analysis.

2.4 Simulation Procedure

Fault scenarios such as the recorded outage types were modeled in ETAP v.20.0 on the network topology. Four scenarios were simulated such as transmission-line, substation, and transformer faults at different points in the network. Both localized and cascading effects were determined. For each scenario, restoration time was simulated under two procedures. The 1st process is (a) the current standard operating procedure. Second process is (b) an alternative-routing, flexible-restoration procedure. We determined the comparison of the process (Adibi, 2000; Zhang et al., 2020).

2.5 Outcome Measures

Reliability was quantified using standard indices — System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI), System Average Interruption Frequency Index (SAIFI), and Customer Average Interruption Duration Index (CAIDI) — calculated per IEEE Std 1366 (Milsoft Utility Solutions, 2024). Percentage of load restored within 2 hours was calculated as a secondary outcome.

2.6 Statistical/Analytical Approach

A paired comparison (pre- versus post-strategy implementation) was performed using the paired t-test, with the statistical significance threshold set at p < .05. Descriptive statistics (mean, SD, range) were computed for restoration time by fault category. Analysis was performed in IBM SPSS Statistics.

2.7 Ethical/Data Considerations

This study was approved by the Babil Electricity Distribution Directorate for data access. We don’t use any personally identifiable subscriber data in analysis in this study.

3. Results and Discussion

3.1 Network Overview and Fault Characteristics

The reviewed transmission network topology is shown in Figure 1, and the distribution of recorded fault types are collected (data not shown). Restoration time varied — sometimes considerably — depending on fault location and severity: faults at the substation level took markedly longer to resolve than isolated feeder-level faults, a pattern consistent with expectations from prior restoration literature (Zhang et al., 2020).

3.2 Restoration Time by Fault Type

As shown in Figure 2, restoration time for major transmission-line or substation-level faults was consistently greater than for smaller, localized feeder faults, reflecting the added complexity of larger-scale interventions. This aligns, broadly, with findings that outage duration is disproportionately driven by fault complexity and access difficulty rather than frequency alone (Sia Partners, 2024).

3.3 Pre- and Post-Strategy Comparison

We compare restoration performance before and after adoption of flexible, alternative-routing restoration procedures (data not shown). Restoration duration decreased and the percentage of load restored increased, with an overall improvement of approximately 35% following adoption of the flexible, alternative-routing strategy compared to standard procedure. This mirrors observations elsewhere that quicker fault isolation and rerouting materially improve SAIDI and CAIDI, even where fault frequency (SAIFI) itself is unchanged (Renewable Energy World, 2019).

3.4 Drivers of Restoration Efficiency

Coordination between control centers and field crews, and the pre-positioning of maintenance resources, repeatedly emerged as factors distinguishing faster restorations from slower ones — a pattern also reported in comparable network studies (Mohsen et al., 2024; Milsoft Utility Solutions, 2024).

3.5 Contextualizing Within Iraq's Broader Grid Challenges

These local findings sit within a national context of chronic underinvestment and technical loss (Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, 2020; Baker Institute, 2025); the improvements observed here, while real, remain constrained by structural limitations no single restoration strategy can fully offset.

4. Conclusion

Taken together, these findings point to a fairly intuitive but still important conclusion: restoration speed in Al-Musayyib's transmission network is not a matter of any one fix, but of several reinforcing practices working in concert. Flexible routing, well-rehearsed emergency plans, and consistent preventive maintenance each contributed, in different ways, to shorter outages and steadier service — and their combined effect appears to exceed what any single measure achieves alone. Faults at the substation level remain the network's most persistent vulnerability, suggesting that future investment might reasonably prioritize protection and redundancy there first. While this study was necessarily bounded to one district and one operating period, its findings offer a modest but usable evidence base for utility planners in Al-Musayyib and, quite possibly, in structurally similar districts elsewhere in Babil Governorate and beyond — provided, of course, that local network conditions are verified before any direct extrapolation.

Acknowledgement

The author S.A.M.A.-H. wishes to thank the staff of Babil Electricity Distribution Directorate for facilitating access to outage and restoration records used in this study.

Author Contribution

S.A.M.A.-H.: conceptualization, methodology, data collection, formal analysis, writing — original draft, writing — review & editing.

Competing Financial Interests

The author S.A.M.A.-H. declares no competing financial interests.

References