A high voltage electricity pylon in northern Lebanon. (Credit: Magaly Abboud/L'Orient-Le Jour)
BEIRUT — Tariffs charged by the state-owned Electricité du Liban will increase dramatically starting Tuesday, EDL's spokesperson told L'Orient Today on Monday evening, without confirming the exchange rate at which the tariffs will be calculated. However, the head of the High Voltage Transmission Networks Department at EDL, Ramzi Dobaissy, said on Monday during a panel discussion that the new tariffs will be calculated on BDL's Sayrafa exchange rate, which is around LL10,000 less than the parallel market rate.
The old tariffs ranged between $0.02 to $0.13 per kilowatt hour calculated at the LL1,507 exchange rate, while the new prices will range from $0.1 to $0.27 per kilowatt hour. The official exchange rate remains LL1,507 to the dollar, while today's parallel market rate is around LL36,500 to the dollar.
In comparison, the price of one kWh produced by private generators has officially been charged at $0.44 since September.
EDL currently barely provides two hours of electricity per day, meaning most consumers rely largely on private generators for their electricity supply.
As a result of decades of mismanagement and corruption, EDL was rationing electricity long before the onset of the current unprecedented economic crisis in 2019. EDL now does not have money to pay for fuel, pay service providers, maintain its facilities, adjust its employees’ salaries to compensate for the depreciation in the lira's value — the currency has lost more than 90 percent of its value since 2019 — or invest in new power plants.
Additional reporting by Philippe HAGE BOUTROS