Off the Grid—Why Solar Won’t Solve Lebanon’s Electricity Crisis

For years, Lebanon’s daily electricity cuts have dictated the rhythms and patterns of everyday life.

In Beirut, these cuts used to last a few hours and were predictable enough for people to time their daily activities around them, avoiding elevators near the time of an expected blackout, waiting to do laundry until the national grid power came back on. But by 2021, images of Lebanon’s complete, country-wide electricity blackout were broadcast across the world. One Lebanese resident described the rolling blackouts as akin to “being cut off from life itself.”[1]

The collapse was caused by successive, interacting crises. In 2019 Lebanon endured one of the severest economic downturns worldwide since the mid-nineteenth century. The August 2020 Beirut port explosion, the covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine compounded economic insecurity and precarity, leading to a significant rise in the prices of commodities, particularly fuel. The increase in fuel prices reduced the state’s electricity availability and placed additional strain on private generator suppliers.

While Lebanon’s fragile and inconsistent power network has posed problems for decades, addressing it has grown urgent in the face of these developments. One possible solution—touted by some energy experts in Lebanon—is to introduce more renewable energy technologies, like solar, to the grid.[2] In theory, solar energy could help alleviate energy poverty, improve access and remake Lebanon politically. Decentralized renewable energy would shift access away from the entrenched political networks that dominate the national grid (as well as backup diesel generator networks). It could allow for new forms of citizen organizing to emerge, especially since decentralization does not necessarily mean privatization.

In reality, the future of renewable energy and its ability to remake the political system in Lebanon remains uncertain. Decentralization initiatives are not always democratic. The global off-grid solar industry is big business, with $1.28 billion invested in sub-Saharan Africa alone—as private companies are reimagined as agents of development to meet the United Nations sustainable development strategy goals to provide electricity to those off the grid. Many of these companies provide off-grid solar through microfinance schemes that have been criticized for the forms of debt and dispossession they impose through inclusion into the global market.[3] These projects can also forge deeply unequal relationships between energy consumers and companies: For example, solar equipment might be repossessed if customers fail to repay loans.

While possibilities remain for remaking Lebanon’s energy system through these emerging technologies, for many residents, solar off-grid systems have increasingly served as stop-gap measures to patch together electricity supply through their own individual household or building-wide workarounds. Increased uptake of residential renewable energy technologies has not—or not yet—ameliorated energy inequality and energy poverty.

 

Before the Blackout

 

Today, Lebanon no longer has a functioning public grid, and individuals and communities are often left to sort out their own energy needs. But Lebanon has never had a history of seamless grid power service, even before the 1975–1990 civil war. Lebanon’s state-owned electricity company, Electricité du Liban (EDL), was founded in 1964. Electrification in Lebanon, like in many places, started as a series of smaller grids: individual concessions that were eventually joined under a state company. From its earliest days, the utility was a site of contestation, as workers and consumers mobilized against uneven access and pricing.

In recent decades, problems with Lebanon’s national public grid have created various forms of fragmentation and inequality of service in a largely carbon-based energy framework. People across the country are heavily reliant on diesel-fueled generators, either individually owned or through shared subscription systems, functionally operating as microgrids, called ishtirak. EDL has faced challenges with network inefficiencies stemming from inadequate maintenance, high operational expenses and other systemic problems. Before the crisis in 2019, the company supplied 1,500 to 2,000 megawatts of electricity at a low tariff of $0.095/kWh, despite having an installed capacity of 3,000 megawatts. Peak demand was around 3,500 megawatts, with the shortfall met by private diesel generators charging $0.3/kWh.[4]

The number of hours on the national grid varies by location. Many parts of Lebanon have never received 24/7 power. Historically, the capital city of Beirut has the most hours on grid, whereas those living in suburbs or outside of urban areas have far less. While some municipalities regulate diesel generator ishtirak microgrids to ensure consistent pricing, not all of them do (depending on the municipality, planning decisions can be made out of narrow sectarian political interests). Moreover, while diesel fueled generators might allow people to keep refrigerators running, they are a major source of air pollution and came with a significant environmental cost.

This fragmented and patchwork system represents the carbon-fueled, unsystematic and messy decentralization of energy, carried out through fuel and generator networks that were neither democratic nor collectively managed and owned.

 

Enduring Blackouts

 

EDL’s service declined rapidly at the end of 2020, when supply chain disruptions and rising fuel prices prompted the company to reduce the number of hours of electricity per day. The reduction happened without prior notice and varied by region, with power supply dwindling to between one and four hours.

Private generator companies were also caught off guard. Now tasked with bridging a wider power gap using the same infrastructure, these companies had to ration electricity. They attempted to establish schedules and anticipated downtime but frequently fell short of expectations. In October 2021, EDL ran out of fuel, plunging the country into darkness for 24 hours after resuming with only a few hours of electricity per day.

For several months, the total daily power supply remained under eight hours, with far-reaching consequences for businesses and households alike. Many eateries, small markets and supermarkets were forced to temporarily suspend operations to prevent food spoilage and foodborne illnesses. Others continued functioning with limited product variety, sometimes jeopardizing consumer safety. In households, refrigerators became storage units. The intermittent electricity supply could not ensure proper food preservation, and substantial amounts of food had to be thrown out. Dietary patterns shifted, as they do in times of war, moving away from perishable items, like dairy and meats, to non-perishable options as well as more vegetarian and vegan choices. These outages also created major financial strain: From November 2021 to January 2022, households, on average, spent 44 percent of their monthly salaries to cover generator costs.[5]

Many companies either temporarily shut down or adopted remote work arrangements because they could not guarantee consistent power availability. Simultaneously, employees struggled to access fuel due to widespread gasoline shortages. Ensuring a stable internet connection and maintaining sufficient charge on laptops and phones for remote work became increasingly challenging. The summer of 2021 marked a pinnacle, as people were forced to endure sweltering heat without air conditioning. With rising fuel costs and shortages and increased demand for 24/7 service, private generator companies and ishtirak generator subscription services became an unreliable source of power. Individuals had no choice but to assume control over their household electricity supply.

One strategy involved reducing household energy use through the availability of small, consumer technologies like 12-volt LED lights that connected to car batteries or small charging devices. Many started relying on UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) devices, which are meant to provide emergency backup power and surge protection to electronic equipment during power outages or fluctuations. Depending on the number of batteries added to the UPS, individuals could illuminate their homes more brightly or even operate a small functional fridge. These UPS systems were typically charged during brief periods of government-provided electricity, day or night.

Until mid-2022, EDL was still able to supply between one to four hours of electricity per day, depending on the region. In November of that year, it announced an increase in its tariff amounts. According to comments made at the time by the caretaker minister of energy, Walid Fayad, the increase was supposed to support reforms in the electricity sector and improvements to the grid to supply more power. While the aim was to increase the power supplied to ten hours per day, by 2023, EDL still only supplied 200 to 250 megawatts of power, only around 6.5 percent of the demand.[6]

 

Solar Energy in the Wake of the Blackout

 

As months dragged on, renewable energy became an increasingly attractive investment for many households and businesses.

Solar panels were available before 2019, but few people opted to install them, since electricity supplied by EDL and private generator providers was cheaper. In the aftermath of the blackout of 2021, however, the use of solar systems surged. According to Pierre El-Khoury, General Director of the Lebanese Center for Energy Conservation, Lebanon’s total solar power generating capacity has increased eight-fold since 2020. As of last year, around 4 percent of households (about 50,000) relied on rooftop solar power for their energy needs.[7] The number of registered businesses installing solar power at residential and commercial sites has increased from around 150 to 800.[8]

In addition to local efforts, several international organizations have initiated projects and invested in renewable infrastructure, including the Country Entrepreneurship for Distributed Renewables Opportunities—a United Nations Development Program initiative that has facilitated 150 renewable energy projects. USAID, meanwhile, has created a Solar and Renewable Energy Fund of $20 million to incentivize private sector investments in the installation of solar panels.[9] Other projects in Lebanon are being financed by the European Union, the Republic of Korea and the United Nations Human Settlements Program.

The “solar boom” peaked as the energy crisis continued, but it came with its own problems: As new companies rushed to get in on the market, many of the installations were poorly implemented.[10] Furthermore, even for small-scale solar systems, installation costs per household are considerable and at times prohibitive. While the Lebanese government offers loans for solar power in Lebanese lira, people are reluctant to use the unstable currency. These loans are also difficult to access, and owing to the overall dysfunction of state institutions and processes, relatively few have been processed.

Even after installing solar panels many households and businesses could not achieve complete independence from private generator suppliers or government-generated electricity without also investing in storage. Consequently, diesel generators remain in use and continue emitting carbon. A more robust vision for decentralization would allow for interconnection between these distributed energy resources. But that would require a level of state or local government coordination that has yet to emerge.

 

State and Local Responses to the Electricity Crisis

 

Over the past year, the central government has announced multiple initiatives attempting to advance renewable development across Lebanon, including through distributed net metering systems, which enable households and businesses with solar systems to sell power back to the grid.

In May 2023, the Energy Ministry established agreements with several private companies to construct 11 private solar farms that will sell electricity directly to EDL. But the private companies will be required to finance construction of these solar farms, which could prove challenging given the ongoing financial crisis and difficulties in obtaining bank loans.

The Lebanese Parliament also enacted the Distributed Renewable Energy Production Law, in December of 2023, which allows private entities to sell up to 10 megawatts of renewable power back to the grid. Net metering is not necessarily a panacea, however, as evidenced in the criticism leveled at similar initiatives in Jordan. While net metering has allowed for the proliferation of renewables into Jordan’s grid, the compensation scheme for selling power, according to critics, has meant that mostly wealthy and commercial participants in these programs benefit, while the state operates at a loss. By this logic, net metering could enable the upward redistribution of wealth through renewable energy.

As the crisis in Lebanon drags on, utility-scale private power generation projects also continue to operate in chaotic conditions, spurred, in part, by currency concerns. In 2022 and 2023, Primesouth Lebanon, a company responsible for the operation and maintenance of power plants, responded to the government repeatedly stalling payments by taking the drastic step of shutting down two of EDL’s major power plants, cutting off the entire state power supply. A total shutdown is catastrophic, not only to individual residents but also potentially to critical infrastructures like the airport and even water distribution facilities that rely on the grid.

In the face of these risks, Lebanon’s entrenched political class has made it difficult to achieve any kind of systemic change to the energy sector. The Lebanese government’s longstanding practice of withdrawing from public service provision or channeling resources through sectarian political organizations places a heavy burden on individuals and NGOs to fill the gaps.

Collective community-level projects implemented on the municipal level might be a better way forward, despite concerns around the entrenchment of political patronage within municipal governance. On this front, and despite the many challenges of recent years, some are actively imagining these potential futures on the ground in Lebanon. One notable example is the Citizens’ Assembly project, which seeks to re-envision what energy justice could look like and create more channels for people to advocate outside of the usual forms of technocratic expertise. Such experiments are incredibly important, not just for Lebanon, but for a world facing renewable energy transition along uncertain terrain.

[Danielle Fheili holds a master’s degree in Public Policy from the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. Joanne Nucho is an associate professor of anthropology at Pomona College.]

 

This article appears in MER issue 311 “Post-Fossil Politics.”

 

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Endnotes

 

[1] Lena Simet, “‘Cut off from Life Itself,’” Human Rights Watch Report, October 27, 2023.

[2] Zachary Cuyler, “Competing Visions for Rebuilding Lebanon’s Collapsing Energy Sector,” MERIP, June 8, 2022.

[3] Jamie Cross and Tom Neumark, “Solar Power and Its Discontents: Critiquing Off-Grid Infrastructures of Inclusion in East Africa,” Development and Change 52/4 (2021), pp. 902–26.

[4] “Lebanon Power Sector Emergency Action Plan,” World Bank Group, 2020.

[5] Laure Delacloche, “How Solar Power Is Keeping Lebanon’s Lights On,” BBC, May 17, 2023.

[6] Adam Rasmi, “Why Lebanon Is Having a Surprising Solar Power Boom,” Time, March 2, 2023.

[7] Laure Delacloche, “How Solar Power Is Keeping Lebanon’s Lights On,” BBC, May 17, 2023.

[8] Adam Rasmi, “Why Lebanon Is Having a Surprising Solar Power Boom,” Time, March 2, 2023.

[9] U.S. Embassy Beirut, “U.S. AMBASSADOR SHEA ANNOUNCES $20 MILLION ENERGY FUND TO HELP LEBANESE ENTITIES,” U.S. Embassy in Lebanon, March 17, 2023.

[10] Sally Abou AlJoud, “Experts weigh in: Why is Lebanon’s solar ‘boom’ no longer booming?,” L’Orient Today, May 13, 2024.