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Brumana, Lebanon -As the entire country is forced to adapt to life without electricity, power outages have swept Lebanon in recent weeks.
As the government failed to provide heavy fuel oil for power plants, the electricity provided by the state-owned power company was reduced to two hours a day, and Completely closed In certain areas of the country.
Privately owned diesel generators used to make up for less than 3 hours of government-supplied electricity, but now they are responsible for the remaining 22 hours of the day.
High demand and lack of imports have led to extreme fuel shortages and fueled a black market for hoarding fuel at prices that most people in Lebanon cannot afford.The government has Reduce subsidies Use diesel fuel and move to allow Direct import, Hoping to alleviate this scarcity, but the only result is that the price has risen nearly four times.
The subscription fee for generators has risen to astronomical figures, as high as $375 in the parallel currency exchange market, enough to keep families cool on hot summer nights. As generator owners try to save fuel, the wealthy who can afford these high fees still face daily power outages.
Sometimes they couldn’t find any diesel at all, and they were forced to sit in the dark and sweat profusely, wondering if the food in the refrigerator had been refrigerated to be safe to eat.
‘Definitely a boom’
As a result, interest in alternative energy sources has surged, and thousands of wealthy people are now turning to solar energy to get rid of unreliable power grids.In one see about 300 days of sunshine per year, Well-off residents have snapped up the expensive equipment needed to ensure stable off-grid power, so that they and their families can feel at ease.
“From a residential perspective, this is definitely a boom,” said Carla Nassab, a project officer at the United Nations Development Programme, who is working on multiple alternative energy projects across Lebanon.
“But prosperity is not just a residence, it’s everywhere,” she said. “Industry is studying solar energy or anything that really provides them with electricity because it has become too scarce and it has become too expensive.”
A worker installs solar inverters at Samer Maatouk’s home in Brumana, Lebanon, at a cost of approximately US$1,300 [Adam Muro/Al Jazeera]The six Lebanese alternative energy contractors interviewed for this article agreed, saying they had never seen such an interest in solar energy before.
“I would say it has skyrocketed in history. Maybe this is still an understatement. Our team has tripled in just two weeks,” said Bassam Karam, general manager of Smart Power. “Now it’s not just a cost issue. It’s a question,’Do you have electricity?'”
Karam said that Smart Power receives more than 500 requests for quotations every week, and it is impossible for them to follow up on everyone.
Solar contractors told Al Jazeera that their new customers come from all over the country, from all religious denominations, and have nothing in common other than being able to pay high prices for their new solar power system in so-called “fresh” dollars, or 2019 After the collapse of the banking industry in 2016, American dollars were introduced from abroad.
A new system that includes photovoltaic solar panels, ion batteries, and solar inverters—converting direct current from the sun to alternating current that can be stored in batteries—costs between US$4,500 and US$6,000, and will go from there Increase.
Spending this money can provide enough electricity storage for the home, which can be used continuously for 8 to 10 hours after the sun goes down, and can be used for more than 10 years before major repairs are required. But the initial investment far exceeded the affordability of the vast majority of Lebanese.
“We only accept new dollars,” said a representative of Kypros Solar, who said that more than 100 systems have been sold this summer. “Because we brought everything from outside [the country], Mainly from China and the United States, so we pay in new U.S. dollars. “
A worker is installing electrical wires to transmit the DC power collected from the sun to the solar inverter [Adam Muro/Al Jazeera]In Lebanon, Just like the whole world, The demand is so high that it becomes more and more difficult to purchase the necessary components, and customers are told to wait a long time before installing the system, sometimes as long as three months.
Earth Technologies Chief Operating Officer George Abboud said: “Now we need to wait 20 or 25 weeks instead of two to three weeks after confirmation to receive our products.”
“So we started to source from other companies, not from factories. We started to deal with distributors from the UAE, Jordan and Europe, trying to find as many products as possible,” Aboud explained, noting that this is eroding his company. Profit margins.
‘Easier to go green’
Despite increasing interest, the cost and scarcity of the equipment is still a major issue.
“I got solar panels and inverters from a company in Milan,” said a man from Bcharre, a mountain town in northern Lebanon, who requested anonymity. “I still can’t find the battery, and it’s expensive.”
In order to save money, he decided to purchase and install solar systems by himself. He is a personal physics tutor, earning a salary with the depreciating Lebanese pound. He said that in order for his family to have independent energy sources, he decided to sell some of the gold he bought when the situation improved.
Finally, he said that investing in alternative energy is an easy decision. “You basically pay the same amount in U.S. dollars every month [for diesel fuel]Therefore, it is easier to achieve green environmental protection or use solar or wind energy to maintain your house. “
Chawki Lahoud, owner and general manager of CLEnginering, saw the solar boom a few months ago and stocked batteries and solar panels.
Because of this, he said that he can complete seven to eight projects a week, with an average cost of $6,500 per project. He said he only accepts big jobs and will refer requests for smaller systems to colleagues in the industry.
“I always sell to the rich,” he said. “These guys, I can assure you that they have [access to fresh dollars.]”
The lead-acid battery storage in the trunk of the solar contractor Chawki Lahoud’s car is used to store electricity obtained from the sun.Each battery costs US$400, and it’s getting harder and harder to find in Lebanon [Adam Muro/Al Jazeera]Last week, Lahoud installed a 10-panel, 8-battery device in the home of Samer Maatouk in Brumana, a wealthy village in the mountains above Beirut. Samer Maatouk was the one he refused. The CFO of a large company on anonymity.
“I didn’t ask him about the price, I asked about the system,” Maatouk said. “Now if you don’t have electricity, you have no choice. There is no other choice. Otherwise, you will turn off the generator, throw away the food, and live like 1850.”
Across the street, Maatouk’s neighbor, Abdullkhalek Mallah, said he plans to hire Lahoud’s company to build the solar system soon.
“We paid 7 million pounds [$4,600] And it’s being cut every day,” he said of last month’s diesel generator bill. “The entire system will cost about $4,800, but it’s still more efficient than paying for generators. “
Although this option only applies to the wealthy, Nassab of the United Nations said that she sees Lebanon’s solar boom as a bright spot in Lebanon’s bleak prospects.
“What happened? This is a crisis. Very sad,” she told Al Jazeera. “But I think this will change our behavior in the future.
“This is the impetus that people need. In the past, no one would see its benefits except that it was good for the environment and relieved the pressure on the Libyan Power Company.”
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