Power cuts several hours per day are a way of life in Beirut, and some rural areas of Lebanon go without electricity for upwards of 16 hours a day, every day. The irony, that a country which boasts a banking sector with deposits three times the size of its economy cannot produce mid-twentieth century levels of electricity for its citizens, is lost on no one. And yet nothing has been done to address the problem. Talk has ranged from leasing offshore electricity barges from Turkey, to importing thousands of megawatts (MW) of electricity overland from Iran in order to bridge the enormous gap between consumer demand and supply on hand.
Experts estimate that demand for electricity in Lebanon will reach 4,000 MW in less than three years. Today, the country produces only around 1,500 MW of electricity, while at peak times around 2,500 MW is actually needed. As a net energy importer with an outdated and ramshackle power grid, Lebanon must get creative.
One significant part of the solution could come from wind turbines. Early last month, a company called Hawa Akkar officially launched a wind farm project for north Lebanon that it says will eventually contribute 60 megawatts of electricity to the national power grid.
But the biggest hurdle for the project is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the Lebanese government. Electricity generation cannot be privatized in Lebanon because the law has not been implemented yet. That means the state-run institution that everyone loves to hate, Électricité du Liban (EDL), will maintain its power monopoly into the foreseeable future.
New wind beneath the wings
The Hawa Akkar plan calls for twenty wind turbines to be spaced out along a north-south ridge line that tops out at 800 meters high near the town of Machta Hammoud in Lebanon’s northern Akkar region. Akkar has long been neglected by the government in Beirut, and many local officials see this wind farm as the potential start of a new era of prosperity for the region, creating jobs and spurring outside investment. “The people of Akkar are fed up with power shortages” and want the government to act, says Najji Ramadan, mayor of Machta Hammoud.
If Hawa Akkar’s ambitious plan stays on track, the wind farm will be fully operational by early November 2013.
The proposed site of the Hawa Akkar Wind Farm can be compared to several current locations along southern Europe’s Mediterranean coastline. In terms of topography, average annual temperature and vegetation cover —all of which factor prominently into the harnessing of wind energy — the closest comparison would be Portugal’s Candeeiros wind farm. Its 37 wind turbines, the same model that would be used by Hawa Akkar, together produce 111 MW of power.
Hawa Akkar has teamed up with Spanish wind turbine producer Vestas for the venture, but the project remains 100 percent Lebanese-owned. The current plan for Machta Hammoud calls for 20 turbines. These are the V90 3MW model — each capable of producing 3 MW, enough to power some 60,000 homes across Lebanon. The total cost of Hawa Akkar is expected to reach an estimated $100 million.
General manager of Hawa Akkar, Albert Khoury, also the deputy general manager of E-Aley, an electricity concession that distributes electricity to the district of Aley, is passionate about the benefits of bringing the first wind farm to Lebanon: “We know this can happen, and will continue to push until it is done. We have so much support [in the government and private sector] and we are closer than we have been since the idea first came about.” He says the plan was initially discussed in 2008, and a measurement campaign began in Machta Hammoud in July 2009.
More than electricity
Along with Mayor Ramadan, Khoury points to the knock-on effect that a wind farm would have on the area. “Hawa Akkar has the potential to produce hundreds of jobs in the area,” he says, citing everything from the dozens of employees required to maintain the project, to an increase in tourism for the area, meaning new hotels, restaurants and improved roads and infrastructure for the local population.
Khoury says the government’s reaction has been “very positive,” but he hopes it will turn its words into action soon. A spokesperson from the Ministry of Energy and Water (MoEW) declined to comment on the likelihood of Hawa Akkar gaining full approval from the government, but did say the ministry is “studying all aspects of wind energy production, including Hawa Akkar.” The MoEW’s 2010 Policy Paper for the Electricity Sector looks to produce 60 – 100 MW using wind power, stating that the ministry will “complete a wind atlas for Lebanon and launch Independent Power Production wind farms with the private sector.” The cost of producing 60 MW was estimated at $117 million, almost 20 percent higher than Hawa Akkar’s proposal.
In January of last year, some 18 months after the Policy Paper was released, the United Nations Development Programme and the Country Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Demonstration Project for the Recovery of Lebanon (CEDRO) drafted a National Wind Atlas of Lebanon.
At last year’s Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, Lebanon pledged that by 2020, 12 percent of the country’s energy needs will be met from renewable sources, such as wind farms and thermal power plants. Given the sensitivity of the energy sector in Lebanese politics, and the inevitable stalling and bickering that goes along with it, that target date may be overly ambitious.
And it is not only a decrepit power grid that is keeping Lebanon in the dark. Last month, EDL last month claimed that political violence and instability in north Lebanon, “resulted in stopping the maintenance works on the first gas turbine at the Deir Ammar power plant,” and that 200 MW of power would be lost from the national grid. Akkar can be volatile, as events this year have proven.
According to Steve Sawyer, secretary general of Global Wind Energy Council, a lobbying group, “There is almost always resistance from the grid/system operators to doing something new.” Speaking in general terms not specific to Lebanon, Sawyer says, “typically, 10 to 15 percent wind power capacity can be added [to a national grid] without substantial modifications and relatively minor operational ones. Higher penetrations generally require more substantial modifications both in terms of the infrastructure and the management.”
Khoury emphasizes that the plan is not for Hawa Akkar to compete with EDL or any potential private electricity distributors in the future, but rather his company only intends to “contribute” to the national supply of electricity, whether by generator barges or overland imports.
Forecasts for the future
For two years now, since the Policy Paper for the Electricity Sector was released, the MoEW has claimed that “the legal framework for privatization [law 462] … exists but is not applied.” Statements like this only fuel public cynicism.
The thought of not having to pay for daily access to a generator during rolling power cuts seems far fetched today. But if plans such as Hawa Akkar Wind Farm, or other renewable sources of energy production come to pass, 24-hour electricity across Lebanon could become reality. While the Hawa Akkar Wind Farm plan is ambitious, it will only provide a fraction of Lebanon’s energy needs. But it could be a start and, if successful, will encourage other private companies to follow the same route toward a more energy independent Lebanon. And it is quite simple, as Mayor Ramadan says: “We not only own the land, but we own the energy, too.”
