--- title: "Challenges Facing Renewable Energy in Lebanon | Ghazi Mahmoud" url: https://ghazimahmoud.com/en/articles/2024-06-19-3b603e/ lang: en description: "Energy, across its various sources, forms the backbone of modern economies, enabling the establishment of new investments, the expansion of existing businesses, and the launch of creative innovations." --- [All articles](https://ghazimahmoud.com/en/articles/) # Challenges Facing Renewable Energy in Lebanon [Brig. Gen. (Ret.) Dr. Ghazi Mahmoud](https://ghazimahmoud.com/en/about/) 19 Jun 2024 · 6 min read [Energy, oil and gas](https://ghazimahmoud.com/en/articles/energy/) Energy, across its various sources, forms the backbone of modern economies, enabling the establishment of new investments, the expansion of existing businesses, and the launch of creative innovations. Across its diverse uses, energy contributes to creating more job opportunities, which helps boost economic growth and social welfare. This makes the availability of energy a prerequisite for the development and progress of human life, and requires its sustainability and availability from clean and renewable sources in order to protect the environment and curb the risks of climate change. The use of clean and renewable energy in electricity generation has proved successful in many countries, where the share of renewable energy in the energy mix has grown and expanded beyond hydropower to include wind movement, sunlight, bioenergy, and other sources. Technological advances in the manufacture of photovoltaic cells have contributed to this expansion, as have advances in wind power technology and in the technologies used to process biomass. These technologies have witnessed remarkable progress, particularly over the past two decades, giving strong momentum to electricity generation from renewable energy. A report by the International Renewable Energy Agency showed that investment in renewable energy sources is highly cost-effective and makes a strong contribution to economic growth, sustainable development, and job creation. According to the report, 90% of the world's electricity should be generated from renewable energy by 2050, particularly since these energy sources are available in all countries. An American study also indicated that by 2029, electricity generated from renewable energy sources in the United States of America will be the cheapest in the world. Conversely, renewable energy faces numerous challenges that hinder its utilization and make investing in it a long and complex process, especially since each source has its own characteristics and conditions for development and use. Hydroelectric plants can only be built along river courses and at waterfalls of great height, just as wind farms must be established in areas with high wind speeds. Solar energy is no less demanding, requiring large areas far removed from shade and whatever causes it. Notably, turning to renewable energy was not driven solely by the risk of depleting conventional sources; on the contrary, environmental concerns and the risks of climate change resulting from the polluting emissions caused by fossil fuels (coal, oil, and gas) provided an additional incentive for this shift. Renewable energy was added to the existing energy mix, meaning that it did not form a standalone source separate from other conventional sources. The aim of transitioning to renewable sources was to enhance the energy security afforded by diversifying energy sources, reduce reliance on fossil fuels, and counter unexpected fluctuations in their prices. For the Lebanese, however, turning to renewable energy came as a result of the dramatic drop in electricity generation at Électricité du Liban plants, culminating in a complete shutdown in April 2022 before production resumed. The investment achieved in solar energy was not the fulfillment of pledges made by those in charge of the energy sector that clean and renewable energy would account for 12% of total energy produced in 2020, and 30% in 2030; indeed, none of these pledges has been met by the government. Although total electricity generation in Lebanon from renewable sources, particularly solar energy, has reached nearly 1,500 megawatts to date, most of it has been realized through individual initiatives and in the absence of any real role for the Lebanese state and its institutions. This generation is distributed across small, scattered units whose capacity does not exceed 10,000 watts each, while only a tiny proportion is produced through stations serving industrial or service enterprises, or development projects in Lebanese towns and villages such as drinking-water pumps, landline telephone exchanges, and the like. The shift by consumers, both individuals and institutions, toward installing units to generate their own electricity needs took place under varying specifications and standards, most of which do not conform to the specifications and standards set by Électricité du Liban. This lack of conformity means that only a small fraction of these individual units can be connected to the public power grid, bearing in mind that there is no point in connecting them unless such stations generate a surplus of electricity. For the electricity generated by private solar units to genuinely count as added national capacity, there must be a national plan to integrate these units into the national electricity generation framework. In Lebanon, investment in renewable energy, and solar energy in particular, faces multiple challenges that must be addressed in order to boost electricity generation from these sources, raise their productivity, and broaden their benefits. These challenges are divided between those tied to the specific nature of renewable energy itself and those governing the relationship between renewable energy and conventional energy. The main challenges relating to conventional energy can be summarized as follows: - Ensuring the stability of the public grid and preventing its collapse requires a capacity of at least 800 megawatts on the grid (amid rationing and the outage of the National Control Center (NCC) following the port explosion). - Connecting electricity-generating power units to the public grid requires electricity to be available on the grid around the clock (24/24). - Such connection entails high financial costs given the technical equipment required to ensure security and public safety standards. - Connecting to the grid also requires expediting the rehabilitation of the National Control Center for the electricity grid in order to achieve the desired results. - Any potential increase in the load on the public electricity grid must coincide with upgrading the transmission and distribution network, particularly medium- and low-voltage lines. - The Energy Sector Regulatory Authority, which holds exclusive responsibilities specified in Law 462/2002 and Law 318/2023, must be appointed as an indicator that those in charge of the sector are complying with applicable laws. As for the challenges linked to the specific nature of renewable energy across its various sources, they include the following: - Renewable energy sources are intermittent, unstable, and highly susceptible to natural factors and seasonal variations. - Generating electricity from wind movement requires establishing wind farms in locations where wind speeds are at least 65 meters per second. - Electricity-generating solar power units require vast areas in regions with intense sunlight. - Surplus power from various renewable energy sources must be stored for use when renewable sources slow down, which drives up the initial investment cost. - Adopting integration among renewable energy projects across their different sources in order to store surplus energy, particularly in hydropower, even though this is a complex and costly process. - The absence of domestic financing threatens to leave renewable energy projects monopolized by foreign companies (CMA CGM, TotalEnergies, QatarEnergy), particularly the 11 licenses approved by the caretaker government in May 2022. Perhaps the most significant challenge facing investment in renewable energy is the paralysis of the state and the erosion of its role and authority amid a presidential vacuum and a government restricted to a caretaker capacity. Resolving the crisis in which Lebanon is mired requires the state, along with its administrations and institutions, to resume fulfilling its responsibilities in diagnosing problems, proposing solutions, and overseeing their implementation within a comprehensive national vision. Resolving the electricity crisis at the national level requires integrating the efforts of the state and its institutions with individual initiatives so that electricity becomes accessible to all Lebanese, not merely the affluent among them. It is unacceptable to wait until the situation stabilizes before preparing studies and adopting plans to address crises, particularly the electricity crisis. Falling behind the rapid pace of development around us will raise the cost of addressing crises and make doing so more difficult. Translated from Arabic with AI. [Read it in Arabic](https://ghazimahmoud.com/articles/2024-06-19-3b603e/) ## Published in - [Channel 23](https://ch23.com/Article/173723/تحديات-تواجه-الطاقة-المتجددة-في-لبنان) - [Lebanon Files](https://archive.lebanonfiles.com/2024/articles/باقلامهم/تحديات-تواجه-الطاقة-المتجددة-في-لبنان/) - [OZ Arab Media](https://ozarab.media/تحديات-تواجه-الطاقة-المتجددة-في-لبنان/) - [Radar News](https://www.radar-news.net/تحديات-تواجه-الطاقة-المتجددة-في-لبنان/) ## More on energy, oil and gas [All articles on this subject](https://ghazimahmoud.com/en/articles/energy/) [19 Jun 2024 · Lebanon's Challenges in Adopting Renewable Energy · LinkedIn, OZ Arab Media ](https://ghazimahmoud.com/en/articles/2024-06-19-b19678/) [5 Jun 2024 · No Sustainable Electricity for Lebanon Without Renewable Energy · Channel 23, Radar News ](https://ghazimahmoud.com/en/articles/2024-06-05-9e9dd1/) [5 Jun 2024 · No sustainable electricity for Lebanon without renewable energy · LinkedIn, OZ Arab Media ](https://ghazimahmoud.com/en/articles/2024-06-05-077dd9/)