The first power plant built from scratch since Iraq’s liberation last year powered up earlier this week. Just 11 months ago, the Buzurgan site in southeast Iraq was nothing more than a sand field.

More importantly to Iraqis, the $40 million plant adds 40 megawatts of power per day to the Iraq electricity grid – enough to fuel around 120,000 Iraqi homes.

Similar projects have taken more than twice as long to complete, according to the Army Corps of Engineers, the organization helping to rebuild the power infrastructure in Iraq since last summer.

The operations officer for the Corps’ Restore Iraqi Electricity Directorate of the Gulf Region Division, Major Erik Stor, credits the speedy construction to the Corps’ engineers and the “hard work of the Iraqi people.”

The project employed more than 400 Iraqis. The Corps of Engineers boasts about 250 workers in Iraq. Most of the engineers in the Corps are civilians who work under a regular military structure. But unlike the Army, the engineers get to choose their placements – meaning every one of them volunteered for duty in Iraq.

“They are doing it because it’s the right place to be, and the right thing to do,” Major Stor told The New York Sun in a phone interview from Baghdad.

The engineers supervise scores of projects throughout Iraq along with Iraqi workers from the newly sovereign Ministry of Electricity. Major Stor said that since the transfer of sovereignty, the Corps works at the discretion of the new Minister of Electricity, Aiham Alsammarae

“He’s the guy who’s giving us the priorities,” Major Stor said. “He’s the guy who’s saying, ‘This is what I want you to work on.'” Major Stor, who conducted two tours in Bosnia and another in Afghanistan, said working with Iraqis is like no other job.

“We’ve been working side by side with the Iraqi people in order to fix these problems,” he said. “Local workers are very thankful for the work that we’re doing. They recognize that every time we put a convoy on the road there is an increased risk. They respect that risk and appreciate that.”

Electricity in Iraq is currently distributed in a fashion known as “3 by 3.” Power is provided for three hours and then shuts off for three hours. The amount of electricity being produced could power Baghdad fulltime, but it would leave little else for the rest of the country – a decision often made under Saddam Hussein’s watch.

“The Ministry of Electricity’s goal for this month is to make it 4 by 2,” Major Stor said. “We’re near that goal with 5,000 megawatts.”

The current output of 5,000 megawatts per day is far beyond pre-war levels, which averaged 4,400 megawatts per day. Before the transfer of sovereignty in late June, the Coalition Provisional Authority had hoped to achieve 6,000 megawatts of production by June.

Major Stor said that goal proved untenable. He said the bar was set before the engineers had time to fully digest the shape of the electrical grid. “What they found when they started looking at [the generators] was a much worse condition than they thought,” he said. Major Stor compared the current state of the generators to a 1970 Chevelle driven for 34 years with only an oil change twice a decade.

“There’s a lot of wear and tear,” he said adding that it’s hard to even find the parts for the antiquated equipment.

Two other sites built from scratch should come online in southern and central Iraq in the coming months, according to Mitch Frazier, an official with the Corps. He said the Corps has added nearly 1,500 megawatts of electricity to the power grid since last year.