Under-investment, corruption, … the malfunctions of the electricity grid are emblematic of the ills that affect the country.
In the litany of grievances that the Lebanese have been shouting for a month against their ruling class, the shortage of electricity occupies one of the first places. Nearly thirty years after the end of the civil war (1975-1990), the government still fails to provide its citizens with 24 hours of continuous power.
The daily cuts, mitigated by a network of illegal but tolerated generators, oscillate between three hours in Beirut and twelve hours in Tripoli, in the North. These dysfunctions, produced by the corruption of the political class and its inability to reform an obsolete and undersized network, are emblematic of the ills that affect Lebanon. In 2015, the World Economic Forum's Competitiveness Index placed it second to last in terms of the quality of power supplied. In the land of Cedar, the electric fairy looks like an ugly and expensive witch …
The sector has not received any investment from the state since the 1990s
While the needs of the country amount to 3.5 gigawatt hours (GW), the production of the national company, EDL (Electricity of Lebanon), provided by two large fuel-fired power plants, has a ceiling of 2 GW. Despite the promises of successive governments, the sector has not received any investment from the state since the 1990s. The power deficit is aggravated by huge online losses, of a technical nature. that is to say, linked to faulty infrastructures, but also because of illicit connections and tampering with counters, crosses inherited from the civil war.
EDL, a financial chasm
"If we add the problems of non-billing, by default of collection or refusal to pay, 36% of the electricity produced does not generate revenue"says Hala Bejjani, director of Kulluna Irada, a think tank on public policy. The shortfall is all the more important since EDL's rates have not been increased since 1994. The average production cost per kilowatt-hour (kWh) (15 cents or 14 euro cents), calculated on the basis of from a barrel of oil to $ 55, is significantly higher than its billing cost (9 cents).
Consequence of this calamitous situation, EDL has become a financial pit for the Lebanese State. The government has planned to subsidize the company to $ 1.6 billion (1.44 billion euros) this year, or 10% of budget expenditures. According to the World Bank, nearly 40% of the public debt accumulated since 1992, estimated at $ 85 billion, can be attributed to transfers from the Lebanese Treasury to EDL.
