Electricity privatization : solution for outages in Lebanon

Abstract

The Energy sector in Lebanon has been facing many challenges over the years. The outbreak of the Civil War from 1975 until 1990 caused the electricity sector in the country to fall behind global and regional electricity trends. The purpose of this research is to analyze whether the privatization can improve electricity supply in Lebanon. Novel data was collected to compare the influence of external and internal outages, the fuel consumption and oil price with the total dispatch of the electricity for "Fatmagul", a private company, and "Deir Amar", a government owned power plant. Results show the existence of a significant relationship between external outages, internal outages, fuel consumption and oil price on one hand and the total electricity dispatch on the other hand. The private power plant is three times more efficient in electricity production than the public power plant. The study provides useful recommendations that would help increase the daily electricity output and decrease the cost of production.