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Lebanon’s wind power industry attracts bids from 40+ companies

Lebanon is attracting international interest from 42 companies to develop up to 300 megawatts of wind power, according to Windpower Monthly magazine.

The country’s Ministry of Energy and Water has received expressions of interest from 42 companies in 20 countries, including Denmark, France and Germany.

According to Windpower Monthly, the wind power projects would be located in Akkar, the Bekaa Valley or Southern governorates.

Lebanon is expected to launch the main bidding process during the International Beirut Energy Forum in late September 2018.

Windpower Monthly reports the companies include Ramboll in Denmark, Dongfang Electric in China and ACWA Power in Saudi Arabia, among others.

Lebanon gave the go ahead for 200 megawatt projects in 2017, with a tender introduction to wind power starting in 2013.

The country is still in the early developmental procedures of wind power. Lebanon aims to source 12% of its electricity and heat from renewables by 2020.

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Lebanese politicians scuffle; turn electricity meeting into circus

(BEIRUT) — Rival Lebanese lawmakers turned an electricity committee meeting into a circus Monday as Mustaqbal Movement and Change and Reform MPs engaged in a shouting match accusing each other of corruption.

Ziad Aswad, from MP Michel Aoun’s Change and Reform Bloc, and Jamal Jarrah, from former Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s Future Bloc, nearly brawled on live television before being held back by their colleagues.

The scuffle began when Change and Reform MP Hikmat Deeb protested MP Mohammed Qabbani’s labeling of the Energy Ministry as “Ali Baba’s cave and the 40 advisors,” reported Voice of Lebanon radio (100.5).

This led to a verbal dispute between the lawmakers, triggering expletives and a loud shouting match for several minutes, before journalists and camera crews were asked to leave the room.

The meeting was later suspended and both parties went on the offensive, calling for news conferences to defend their actions.

“The scuffle was a result of historic accumulation of disputes at the committee,” Change and Reform MP Fadi al-Awar told LBCI after the meeting. “Officials and other figures, including Qabbani, who do not pay their electricity bills should be held accountable.”

Qabbani fired back, calling for future committee meetings to be open to the media and defending his party’s response.

“It is shameful to see such barbarism in communication at parliament,” Qabbani said. “I challenge any of those MPs to present any electricity bill that I have not paid.”

Qabbani explained the session was suspended because of the “shameful turn as shown on camera.”

WATCH the scuffle unfold:

 

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Massive power blackout hits Lebanon

sh-electricite-du-liban(BEIRUT, LEBANON) — Lebanon was hit with a massive power blackout since 9:20 a.m. Monday, due to a malfunction in the Zahrani power plant of Electricite Du Liban (EDL) utility company, according to local news media reports.

Failures at the Zahrani power plant are not uncommon, according to sources, but the control room that handles electricity distribution “is not accessible due to the labor strike by contract hourly employees.”

Moving the central control room to another location has, he said, made the task of restoring power more difficult.

While Lebanon has been experiencing intensive rationing for weeks, EDL has been warning against a possible total blackout if contract workers continue their occupation of the headquarters .

EDL Director General Kamal al-Hayek told Voice of Lebanon radio station that employees are working on fixing the sudden electricity disruption, but did not provide any details on when power will be restored.

Lebanon needs about 2500 MW of electric power, but the current output of the electric power stations is about 1600

About 2,000 contract daily workers have been observing a nationwide strike, demanding full-time employment and rejecting a decision issued by the company’s management to hire only the 897 of them that passed the employment test.

According to analysts EDL is a huge burden for Lebanon because its is heavily subsidized. Many of the contract hourly employees do not show up to work, or just clock in and leave.

The analysts stressed that EDL is an inefficient operation that should be privatized or shut down because it cannot continue to drag down the Lebanese economy.

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Lebanon shuts down electricity power plant to limit losses

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(BEIRUT, LEBANON) — An official at the state-owned Electricite du Liban said Wednesday that power plants have been shut down to limit fuel consumption, warning that severe electricity rationing may have to be introduced if fuel subsidies do not reach the required level.

“So far we are producing 1,500 megawatts but the actual demand has exceeded 2,900 megawatts and this is due to the presence of 1.5 million Syrian refugees. If the Finance Ministry does not meet our demand to raise the allocations for fuel and gas subsidies then we have no other choice but to make further power cuts,” an EDL official told The Daily Star.

She added that so far EDL has not yet expanded power rationing but admitted that two or three power plants have been temporarily shut down in order to limit the consumption of fuel oil and gas oil.

Lebanon’s dependence on fuel and gas oil to run the existing power plants is one of the causes of the company’s huge deficit.

Some critics have blasted former Energy Minister Gebran Bassil’s plan to build more power stations and upgrade the existing ones without seeking ways to reduce EDL’s losses.

EDL has written to the Finance Ministry that the allocation for fuel oil not be slashed from $1.8 billion to $2.2 billion, warning that any decision to revise the allocation would compel the company to increase rationing.

Outside Beirut, most parts of Lebanon are experiencing 8-10 hours of electricity rationing every day, but if the new measures are applied then customers could be left without power for over 14 hours a day.

The EDL official stressed that one of the options to cope with the increase in electricity production was an increase in tariffs in a proportional way and in a manner that would not hurt limited income families.

Energy and Water Minister Arthur Nazarian said earlier that the 700 MW plan that was approved by the Cabinet in 2010 would be implemented very soon, noting that two or three plants would increase production at the end of this year.

But the minister insisted that increasing electricity production could cause EDL’s deficit to increase to alarming levels, and for this reason he favored revising the electricity rates as the best choice.

At a workshop, Nazarian said rates would only be revised once new power plants become operational.

He and other MPs said the new rates would be even cheaper than the fares charged by the owners of private generators.

MP Ghazi Youssef urged the government to take the bold decision to increase the electricity tariffs, reminding the participants in the workshop that the total spending on electricity, including the construction of plants and the cost of subsidizing fuel oil over the last 20 years, has cost the treasury over $27 billion.

 

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