BEIRUT: Lebanon needs to increase its current electricity output from 1,500 MW to close to 2,300 MW and this requires an investment of over $2 billion, Energy and Water Minister Alan Tabourian said on Wednesday. “We definitely need more power plants and [need to] modernize existing ones to meet the demand for electricity in Lebanon. We also need to secure energy-efficient plants so that the cost is lower,” the minister told The Daily Star in an exclusive interview.
He added that if Lebanon wanted to replace the Zouk and Jiyyeh power plants then the governments would need to invest more than $2 billion.
The minister stressed that the construction of the new power plants may take from 12 months up to five years, depending on what kind of solution the country is looking for.
EDL’s losses, according to former Finance Minister Jihad Azour, represent nearly a third of the governments’ annual budget deficit.
Azour feared that the EDL’s losses would reach $1.5 billion by the end of the year if the prices of oil remained high in the international markets.
“Our existing power plants can only deliver 1,500 MW of electricity and that’s one of the reasons we reached an agreement with Egypt to supply us with 200 MW of power,” the minister said.
Tabourian expects Egypt to deliver electricity in a couple of months if everything goes according to plan.
Tabourian rejected the argument that the lack of fuel oil to run the power stations was the main reason for the severe electricity rationing.
“Our plants are running in full capacity. The previous governments did not do their jobs and that’s why we still suffer from the rationing,” he said.
Tabourian said that if the previous governments had built more power plants and upgraded existing ones then Lebanon would have not lost $1 billion a year.
Some energy experts advised the government to switch to natural gas to run the stations as this commodity is cheaper than diesel and fuel oil and more environmentally friendly.
However, the minister believes that it is wrong to depend on gas alone to run the stations in Lebanon. “We have to run on a multitude of energy such as gas, fuel oil and other sources of energy,” Tabourian said.
He warned that if a gas pipeline dries up for some reason than “we are in trouble.”
Egypt is also supposed to provide gas to the Beddawi stations in Tripoli through a pipeline that crosses Jordan and Syria, a step that will save Lebanon nearly $200 million a year.
The minister said Syria went out of its way to help deliver gas to Lebanon.
Tabourian added that although the Egyptian gas is an important step, Lebanon must secure LNG (liquefied natural gas) from containers to feed other stations that will run on gas in the future.
“Even if we have 2,300 MW of power stations in the future, the country cannot use all this power at once. We must make sure that that the power stations produce 85 percent of their original capacity,” he said.
Tabourian also rejected the notion that EDLEDL
was to be blamed for the chronic electricity problems.
“EDLEDL is going beyond the call of duty given the current problems they are facing,” the minister said.
He added that more than 95 percent of the Lebanese pay their electricity bills on time.
“The technical losses are mainly caused by the outdated and malfunctioned transformers. If $200 million had been invested to replace these transformers a few years ago we would not have such problems.”
