Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Lebanese Ministry of Energy has let three bids for new solar farms of 15 megawatts each, for a total of 45 MW, which will power 22,000 homes in the perennially electricity-poor country. The bad news is that 11 such bids were accepted in 2022 and nothing ever got done. Still, these three seem more serious, since the land for one of these solar farms has already been obtained.
Note that these three projects are not very ambitious. Lebanon already has 1.5 gigawatts of solar power capacity, most of it in the form of rooftop solar put in by private homeowners and by municipalities. The fragile and inefficient Lebanese state has not spearheaded this effort. In fact, under its mismanagement the country suffers from frequent electricity outages, which affect the ability of factories and businesses to run and so hurt the economy. Lebanon has no developed fossil fuels of its own and so has to pay through the nose for oil and gas imports.
Solar now generates 20% of the country’s electricity needs. Over all, Lebanon gets 30% of its electricity from clean energy sources.
The country plans to get 55% of its electricity from renewables by 2030.
Marc Ayoub, interviewed by Zachary Cuyler for The Century Foundation, explains that in the period 2021-2024, solar power increased by a factor of 10, rising to as much as 1.3 gigawatts. That advance is an incredible achievement, and it was volunteer work. People put the panels on their rooftops or cities implemented municipal projects.
The problem is that since the end of 2024 the solar boom in Lebanon appears to have leveled out. Ayoub gives these reasons:
1. Middle class people who could afford to have already put in the panels, as have the wealthier municipalities. Those who don’t have them can’t afford the $4,000 to $5,000 installation costs for panels and batteries.
(I suspect that Lebanese regulations and import fees play a role here. Pakistani villagers imported 17 gigawatts of Chinese solar panels last year, and they don’t have $5,000 for such installations either.)
2. People who had space to install the panels have done so and the remaining population often doesn’t have the room.
3. There were quality problems with some of the installers and electricians, since the boom arrived so quickly. Some systems haven’t functioned well. Others have been damaged by Israeli bombing.
So obviously further progress in Lebanon may depend on international donors overcoming these problems, or on further price reductions for panels and batteries.
File photo of Beirut by Piotr Chrobot on Unsplash
Although solar electricity is cheaper, it has start-up costs that many Lebanese cannot afford. Poverty has tripled in the country during the past decade, to 44%. Especially debilitating were the financial crisis of 2019, the Beirut port explosion in 2020, the fall in currency reserves, and the embezzlement of the central bank by the central banker. The 2006 and 2024 wars cost roughly $25 billion in direct costs. Israeli designs on southern Lebanon, some of which they still occupy, along with constant geopolitical friction, also hurt foreign direct investment in the country. The presence of an armed group such as Hezbollah, allied with Iran, has reduced the interest in the country of the Arab Gulf.
Lebanese cannot depend on their ramshackle government efficiently to move the country to cheaper sustainable electricity, and Europe may be their best hope in this regard.
Lebanon is vulnerable to climate change effects such as rising sea levels, coastal erosion, acidification and loss of marine species, and wildfires.
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