Neighborhood generators placed on the side of a road in a residential area of Kesrouan. Photo P.H.B.
BEIRUT — The Ministry of Energy and Water raised the per-hour cost of private generators on Thursday, to be applied to August’s electricity bills, according to a statement released by the ministry.
The price hike came even as some Lebanese households remained without power in recent days amid disrupted distribution of the fuel oil needed to run the generators. The energy ministry announces the new prices on a monthly basis.
August’s new price, LL13,796 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), is up by 1.85 percent compared with July (LL13,545 per kWh). However, fees were increased even further for mountainous (more than 700 meters above sea level) and rural areas, rising by 10 percent to reach LL15,176 pounds per kWh.
The higher prices for August come amid rising global fuel prices in the wake of the war in Ukraine and the continued collapse of Lebanon’s lira.
In its statement Thursday the Ministry of Energy and Water called on generator owners to comply with a Ministry of Economy and Trade decree obliging them to install meters to properly monitor customers’ power usage. A significant portion of generator owners continue to charge flat rates, sometimes in dollars.