Rolling blackouts have become a symbol of the political crisis affecting the Lebanese government. According to the World Bank, Lebanese citizens incur on average 220 interruptions of electricity per year, which is the worst performance in the Middle East. Today, electricity production stands at around 1,500 megawatts (MW) while demand exceeds 2,400MW at peak times, resulting in rationing cuts from between 3 to 20 hours a day, depending on where you are in Lebanon. Although the government signed a $360 million deal to lease electricity-generating barges from a Turkish company in July, which is expected to generate 270 MW, this will mainly offset losses as restoration works are carried out on existing power plants. Building a few facilities to bolster generation capacity should not be too challenging, knowing that China builds plants at the rate of one per month. Instead the problem lies in the sector’s governing system: Lebanon’s electricity
