Decentralised renewable energy: a pathway to prosperity for Lebanon?

Energy

This chapter reviews the current state of play on energy and prosperity in Lebanon. The focus is on opportunities for decentralised renewable energy (RE) to not only address Lebanon’s insufficient energy supply but to incite whole systems change in Lebanon to address the compounding challenges of mass displacement, changing climate and economic crises. In recent years Lebanon has made great progress in RE despite the ongoing regional turbulence but more could be done to utilise the country’s abundance of renewable resources, growing population and entrepreneurial acumen. Using empirical findings from communities living and working in two neighbourhoods in Lebanon, Hamra and El Mina, we argue that energy policy from a prosperity perspective must be informed by the role public services play in people’s self-defined aspirations of what it means to live a good life. With the policy support from above, locally managed and decentralised RE supply has potential to not only address the energy crisis and mitigate the impacts of climate change, but also setting Lebanon on a path to a sustainable and prosperous future.

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