Electricity generation, which reached about 45 terawatt-hours in 2010, tumbled to under 20TWh by 2015 and did not recover. Now, the new post-Assad government is hurrying to restore gas supplies and repair dams and power stations, but this is a lengthy job. Solar power is crucial to filling the gap. It could do even more.
The change is remarkable. The Abu Dhabi-based International Renewable Energy Agency began reporting Syria’s off-grid solar capacity in 2022, standing at 249 megawatts. It reached 931MW in 2023, 1,500MW in 2024, and 2,060MW last year. Renewable power by then made up a third of national generating capacity, outstripped in the region only by Lebanon and Jordan. A quarter of Syrian households have some kind of solar power. In war-battered Aleppo, too, panels are everywhere.
Ridiculous! Renewables can never work. They’d need a fusion reactor in the sky or air moving by itself for that to happen!
A lot of people are saying it!
Sad but interesting.
When the infrastructure for big power plants exists, it’s usually more convenient and profitable to use them. But when they don’t, solar panels make so much sense. It is nice to see that it’s more about solar panel than diesel generators.
