Lebanon's electricity network covered with illegal connections in Furn al-Shubbak, on Jan. 30, 2026. (Credit: Philippe Hage Boutros/L'Orient-Le Jour)
It’s a distinction few countries would boast about: someone born and raised in Lebanon since the mid-1980s has almost certainly never spent a day without a power outage. None of the more than 15 ministers who have headed the Energy portfolio since the end of the civil war (1975-1990) has managed to change that reality. Often out of powerlessness, they have helped entrench the current system, which combines a public utility with aging infrastructure and costly, inadequate production capacity, alongside a more or less regulated private generator sector.Ironically, this true Rube Goldberg machine has primarily enriched fuel importers in a market dominated by politicians, at the expense of citizens forced to pay two bills or to do without elevators, refrigerators, and air conditioning. Tens of billions of dollars have thus been poured into...
It’s a distinction few countries would boast about: someone born and raised in Lebanon since the mid-1980s has almost certainly never spent a day without a power outage. None of the more than 15 ministers who have headed the Energy portfolio since the end of the civil war (1975-1990) has managed to change that reality. Often out of powerlessness, they have helped entrench the current system, which combines a public utility with aging infrastructure and costly, inadequate production capacity, alongside a more or less regulated private generator sector.Ironically, this true Rube Goldberg machine has primarily enriched fuel importers in a market dominated by politicians, at the expense of citizens forced to pay two bills or to do without elevators, refrigerators, and air conditioning. Tens of billions of dollars have thus been poured...
