Shooting for the Sun: A feasibility assessment of Lebanon’s renewable electricity targets

Abstract: Most electricity in Lebanon is produced by burning fossil fuels, which produces more than one half of domestic greenhouse gas emissions, and the state-owned electricity companies are unable to meet the demand. To increase the country’s generation capacity and simultaneously combat the effects of climate change, the government aims to produce 30% of its electricity from renewables by 2030. It is however not clear whether this ambitious aim is feasible. This research aims to assess the feasibility of Lebanon’s renewable energy targets and identify options for increasing this feasibility. The thesis first explores what mechanisms and processes enable and constrain the achievement of Lebanon’s renewable electricity targets through a structured comparison of techno-economic, socio-technical and political factors. It then investigates how Lebanon’s experience with renewable electricity deployment and the trajectory of renewable electricity growth necessary for achieving their targets compare with the historical experience of renewable electricity deployment in other countries that succeeded in rapidly and widely deploying renewable energy using growth modeling. Lastly, recommendations are given on how to increase the feasibility of achieving Lebanon’s renewable electricity targets. The thesis shows that Lebanon has sufficient geophysical potential to reach these targets but that its solar target of 3 GW is highly ambitious and faces numerous challenges in its accomplishment pertaining to the current political and financial situation, institutional and regulatory limitations, and poor infrastructure. To achieve this target, Lebanon would need to develop its solar power sector as fast, if not faster than the world’s front-runners, which generally have much higher technological and institutional capacities. This thesis argues that energy security imperatives together with strong demand growth and import dependency provide strong incentives for the rapid expansion of solar power in Lebanon. Such expansion can be enabled by electricity market liberalization and attracting international investors and developers through stable support schemes, making Lebanon’s renewable electricity targets more feasible.