SUMMARY

Lebanon provides its citizens with as little as 2–6 hours of state electricity per day — one of the worst averages in the world for a middle-income country. The crisis is not sudden: it is the result of 30 years of corruption, mismanagement, and political paralysis. Ordinary Lebanese have adapted with remarkable ingenuity — private generators, solar panels, halogen backup lights — but at enormous personal cost.

This post explains why it happened, who else lives like this, and whether anything will ever change.

Walk through Beirut at night.

You’ll notice something: the city breathes in shifts. Every few hours, one set of lights dies and another flickers on. The hum of a generator replaces the hum of the grid. For anyone who has lived here, this rhythm is so familiar it barely registers anymore. That normalisation — the quiet acceptance of a broken system — is precisely the problem.

A crisis hiding in plain sight

Lebanon’s state electricity company, Électricité du Liban (EDL), currently delivers between 2 and 6 hours of power per day, depending on the region. Beirut historically fares better than rural areas; villages further from the capital have long received fewer hours and have higher private generator bills to compensate.

In August 2024, even that minimal supply collapsed entirely when the last operational power plant ran out of fuel, plunging the entire country into darkness for over 24 hours — including the airport, prisons, and water pumping stations.

This was not a freak event. It was the logical conclusion of three decades of neglect.

THE TIMELINE

How we got here

1975–1990

Civil war destroys electricity infrastructure. Blackouts become part of everyday life and are never properly repaired.

1990s–2010s

EDL provides 12–21 hours per day but accumulates massive debt. Politicians promise 24-hour power in every election cycle. None deliver.

2013

Two Turkish “powerships” (floating power barges) dock off the Lebanese coast under a $370M contract with Karpowership. They add roughly two extra hours of electricity per day — at a steep price.

2019–2021

Lebanon’s economy collapses. The lira loses 95% of its value. EDL cannot afford fuel. Supply falls to 1–3 hours per day. The Turkish barges leave in October 2021 after Lebanon owes them over $100M in unpaid bills.

Aug 2024

Complete nationwide blackout. The Zahrani plant — the last one running at the time — shuts down entirely due to fuel exhaustion.

2025

New President Joseph Aoun and PM Nawaf Salam form a reform-committed government. Lebanon signs a $250M World Bank loan for electricity infrastructure. Hours improve slightly to 4–6 per day. Solar capacity has grown tenfold since 2021.

WHY IT HAPPENED

The four roots of the crisis

Human Rights Watch describes decades of “elite capture of state resources” in which politically connected individuals profited from the electricity sector while EDL’s infrastructure crumbled. Between 2005 and 2020, Lebanon purchased billions of dollars’ worth of faulty fuel from a subsidiary of an Algerian state oil company. The powership contract with Karpowership earned the Turkish firm an estimated $750 million in net profits over eight years — critics say the contract was awarded without a competitive tender process. EDL itself has failed to collect taxes and billing arrears for years, meaning the company could not pay for its own fuel even when foreign currency was available.

Lebanon’s power plants were largely built in the 1960s and 1970s and never properly modernised after the civil war. By 2008–2018, EDL went from meeting 78% of the country’s electricity needs to just 55–64%. The national grid has no modern monitoring system — there is currently no SCADA (real-time grid management) technology in place, meaning EDL cannot even accurately measure how much power it generates or loses in transmission. The $250M World Bank loan signed in April 2025 specifically includes funding for this basic infrastructure.

Lebanon imports almost all of its fuel. When the lira collapsed after 2019, the foreign currency needed to buy fuel evaporated. The government turned to a deferred-payment deal with Iraq for heavy fuel oil — which helped push supply back up to around six hours per day — but deepened EDL’s debt further. The August 2024 blackout occurred because the Central Bank ran out of emergency foreign currency reserves and parliament had not authorised it to make further payments. Different ministries publicly blamed each other: the Energy Minister accused the Central Bank; the bank accused parliament; MPs accused EDL of failing to collect bills.

Lebanon’s confessional political system distributes ministries — including the Energy Ministry — along sectarian lines. This means energy reform is entangled with political power struggles. For over two years before 2025, Lebanon had no president at all, leaving the country in legislative deadlock. IMF and World Bank reform conditions — including tariff reform, EDL restructuring, and the appointment of an independent electricity regulator — have been repeatedly delayed or blocked by competing political factions protecting their interests in the generator and fuel sectors.

THE HUMAN REALITY

How people cope

Many Lebanese households juggle three or four power sources simultaneously. State electricity arrives unpredictably — sometimes with a schedule, sometimes not, and unevenly distributed by region. When it cuts, a subscription to a local neighbourhood generator (the “moteur”) kicks in, managed by a local operator who charges in US dollars. This informal generator industry — estimated at 34,000–40,000 operators nationwide — is largely unregulated and has been described by human rights groups as operating with “mafia-like behaviour”: price gouging, territorial monopolies, fuel hoarding.

Those who can afford it have invested in solar panels and battery storage. From 2021 to 2024, Lebanon’s installed solar capacity grew tenfold, reaching an estimated 1,200–1,300 megawatts. But solar has limits: it does not help on overcast winter days, batteries are expensive to replace, and it remains out of reach for low-income households. And so, at the bottom of the pyramid, people sit in the dark — or keep a drawer of halogen backup lights and candles, as families across the country do.

The cost is not only financial. Human Rights Watch has documented that electricity shortages directly impair access to education (children cannot study online), health (hospitals on generators, medicines refrigerated inconsistently), water (pumping stations fail), and sanitation. Paying for even minimal electricity can consume up to 76% of a resident’s monthly income. Electricity in Lebanon has become, effectively, a luxury good.

LOOKING AHEAD

What happens next — an honest assessment

Likely, the World Bank $250M loan begins to improve grid monitoring and some transmission upgrades. Hours edge upward to 6–8/day in Beirut by 2026–27.

Likely – Private Solar expansion continues; a growing middle tier of Lebanese access affordable, semi-reliable electricity through rooftop systems, reducing dependence on generators.

Possible – Nawaf Salam’s government pushes through EDL restructuring and tariff reform, unlocking further IMF support. Limited progress in 2025 has been noted but stalls remain common.

Unlikely – 24-hour reliable state electricity nationwide. This would require $11B+ in investment, sustained political will, and an end to the generator industry’s political protection — none of which appear imminent.

Unlikely – A return to the power ship model. Lebanon owes Karpowership over $100M in unpaid bills. No new floating plant contract is on the table.

The tragedy of Lebanon’s electricity crisis is not that it is unsolvable — it is that the solutions are well understood and the country has the natural resources to implement them. What has been missing, consistently, is the political will to act against the entrenched interests that profit from the status quo: the generator barons, the fuel importers, the ministers who have turned darkness into a business model.

---

COMMENT

Living in Lebanon, you stop noticing the moment the lights go out. You reach for your phone torch, you listen for the generator to start, you carry on. That adaptation is impressive — and it is also dangerous. When a society stops being outraged by a broken system, the system stays broken. Lebanon’s electricity crisis has never been an accident of geography or poverty. It is a political choice, made repeatedly, by those with the power to fix it and the incentive not to. The question for 2025 and beyond is whether a new government, new international pressure, and a population that has been pushed to the edge will finally change that calculus. The lights are still mostly off. But there is, perhaps for the first time in years, a flicker of something that resembles hope.