Beirut Solar Power Generation System

The results show that Beirut city has a potential for distributed rooftop solar PV to be between 195 and 295 MWp. However, adoption rates are low at 0.49% and 1.23% for residential and commercial buildings, respectively, reflecting the limitation of financial incentives alone to promote the deployment of distributed renewable energy systems.

The potential for distributed rooftop solar energy in Beirut is estimated at the building level. The effects of economic and non-economic factors on solar PV adoption are analyzed using a probabilistic choice model. The impacts of various incentive policies and societal factors on promoting PV are investigated with policy implications.

Lebanon faces an enduring energy crisis, characterized by persistent electricity shortages and an overreliance on polluting self-generation methods, particularly in urban areas like Beirut. Despite the lack of proper policy support, solar electricity has increased significantly since 2020.

Moreover, Lebanon's electricity sector struggles with “unreliable power supply, a distortive subsidy system, and a weak financial stability” of the state-owned utility Électricité du Liban (Ersoy et al., 2021), making it difficult to attract investment in renewable energy.

In 2022, Lebanon imported 80,315 tons of solar panels, quadrupling the total imported in the previous decade, with over US$500 million invested by the private sector in decentralized solar applications (Boukather, 2023). By June 2023, decentralized solar installations had reached an estimated capacity of 1,000 MW (Taha and Akel, 2024) 2 .

The country's current energy model heavily relies on heavy fuel oil plants and diesel generators, with 97% of energy being imported (Karam et al., 2020). Nearly half of Lebanon's national debt is attributed to the electricity sector, largely due to unsustainable subsidies and widespread electricity theft (Ayoub et al., 2021).