Lebanon’s power grid is disintegrating. Beirut, until recently a tourism mecca for those from the Gulf fleeing summer heat, fell into complete darkness and with it came chaos. Short on fuel, state power firm Électricité du Liban (EdL) has only been able to provide around a single hour of power a day.
The country’s installed generation capacity stands at 2.6GW but available capacity is barely 2GW (MEES, 15 March 2019), mainly due to transmission issues. And the fuel oil and gasoil to run anything like this capacity has been sorely lacking: EdL has averaged just 0.68GW since April (MEES, 16 April), resulting in recurring lengthy blackouts. With fuel a hard commodity to come by throughout the country, even private generators are struggling, over 15 hours per day of blackouts are now common. (CONTINUED - 1244 WORDS)
