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
