The Zouk thermal power plant on the Kesrouan coast, Nov. 11, 2024. (Credit: Philippe Hage Boutros)
Électricité du Liban (EDL) has announced in a statement relayed by the official National News Agency (NNA) that it will be increasing its production over the festive season so as to be able to supply two more hours of power per day during the festive season.
The state-owned supplier announced that it had commissioned production units deploying an additional 200 megawatts at the Zahrani power plant in the Saida district in southern Lebanon, “which will consequently increase the daily electricity supply from around four to six hours (per day currently) to around six to eight hours.”
When contacted, a source in EDL's management indicated that this increase was not linked to an increase in fuel supply, but to the management's stock management strategy.
“The situation will be assessed over the next two weeks by EDL, its Board of Directors and the [outgoing] Energy and Water Minister in order to make the decision [whether or not to maintain production at this level] at that time, based on fuel supplies, collection rates and other various factors,” the supplier added in its statement. Wishing its subscribers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, EDL promises to keep citizens informed of the changes that will be made. The next shipment of fuel, 60,000 tonnes, is expected between Christmas and New Year, according to EDL management sources.
Deficient for years in terms of production capacity in relation to the country's demand and financially, EDL's situation deteriorated considerably with the multidimensional crisis that erupted in 2019. It began to slowly recover after the government approved an adjustment of its tariffs to market prices at the end of 2022, and the Energy Ministry launched a loss reduction and bill collection improvement strategy that enabled it to start rebalancing its accounts, which had previously been heavily dependent on Treasury advances granted by Parliament.
Its situation is still far from ideal, insofar as its only source of fuel supply comes from an agreement with Iraq, in place since the summer of 2021 and instituting a barter mechanism with deferred payment. The Iraqi and Lebanese governments recently gave the go-ahead for a further extension of this agreement until the end of January 2025, with an increase in the quantities supplied. This year, EDL was also able to benefit from a one-off fuel donation from its former supplier Sonatrach, as it went through another blackout period.
With the fuel recovered, EDL can only operate two of its thermal power plants at best, Zahrani and Deir Ammar, near Tripoli in North Lebanon, while those at Zouk (Kesrouan) and Jiyyeh (Chouf) remain idle. None of the plants was damaged during the war between Hezbollah and Israel, which lasted from Oct. 8, 2023, until the cease-fire came into effect on Nov. 27: The precarious state of the country's electricity sector has encouraged the development of private district generators which, although illegal at the outset, are imperfectly regulated by the state, with the Energy and Water Ministry regulating the tariffs charged by these operators.
