In the twilight years of the Iraqi monarchy in the late 1950s, Dhia Jafar, then Iraqi development minister, inaugurated two hydroelectric dams in the mountains of Kurdistan. For more than half a century afterwards, no new power stations were commissioned in the northern regions of Iraq.

Now Hamid Jafar, the minister's son, is developing and transporting natural gas to fuel two new power stations in Irbil and Suleymaniya, aiming to deliver stable power to Iraqis who still have only a few hours of mains electricity a day.