Officials also cite stormy weather

Feb. 06, 2007- Lebanon's electric utility promised Tuesday to increase electricity supplies next week "when the weather improves," after over a month of power rationing outside of central Beirut has left many homes and business in the dark for eight to 12 hours per day. Energy-sector officials and Electricite du Liban (EDL) both attribute the recent blackouts to low electricity output at the Jiyyeh power plant - which is currently generating about 10 percent of its pre-war output - and bad weather.

Since the plant's fuel containers were destroyed in July, a seaborne tanker had been pumping oil directly to the facility, typically allowing the plant to work at half its regular production capacity. Recent winter storms, however, have forced the tanker to dock, halting fuel deliveries to Jiyyeh completely.

"The electricity sector is in a disastrous situation right now," said the head of Parliament's Energy Committee, MP Mohammad Qabbani.

"There are the basic problems, which would take all day to explain, and the recent problems. The reason for the latest rationing is that Jiyyeh is generating only 40 megawatts of power [a day]," he said.

Before the war, Jiyyeh produced 360 megawatts of electricity out of the 1,800-2,000 megawatts that Lebanon consumes per day. Now Lebanon's power plants are cumulatively producing only about 1,200 megawatts daily.

But bad weather and Israeli bombardment alone are not entirely to blame for increased power rationing. An EDL official speaking on condition of anonymity said that sectarian tensions have contributed to the utility's difficulties in collecting on bills and have prevented EDL technicians from monitoring "non-technical losses," meaning non-payment of electricity bills and theft.

The official said some technicians are hesitant to monitor losses in areas "where they might encounter problems."

"When you ask an inspector to go monitor losses in an environment when people are trying to burn tires, they are afraid to go. You know if a Christian technician goes into a Muslim area and cuts [illegal shunts into power] lines, there might be trouble," the official said.

"Normally inspectors are sent in teams of two. It's not practical to send a team of 18 inspectors representing all religions in Lebanon."

Until recently, Internal Security Forces (ISF) troopers accompanied EDL maintenance teams deployed to crackdown on theft, but now the ISF is overextended, the official said.

A former Energy Ministry official estimated that EDL does not collect payment for 40 percent of the electricity it produces. "The farther you go outside Beirut, the more theft there is," he told The Daily Star on condition of anonymity. "The problem would not be as bad if more people were following it up though."

Both Qabbani and the former ministry official said the government also contributes to non-technical losses, since many public offices have accumulated massive outstanding electricity bills over the years. But EDL denies this. 

"Most politicians are paying," said the EDL official who did not want his name used, though he declined to go into details.

Some particularly hard-hit areas no longer have access to legal electricity. "We cannot even say that people are stealing power in the southern suburbs [in Beirut] because many of the buildings that had paid for a legal connection to the power grid were destroyed," he said.

The length of power cuts varies by location, said Qabbani, with areas usually serviced by the Jiyyeh plant bearing a disproportionate share of the blackout burden. Installation of an interconnected electricity grid was supposed to have been completed three years ago, which would have allowed energy and shortages to be evenly distributed today. But resistance from Mounsourieh residents - who feared that high-tension electricity lines would cause cancer, despite several international studies indicating otherwise - has indefinitely stalled the project, said Qabbani.

EDL is currently negotiating with a contractor to fix Jiyyeh's destroyed fuel containers. A grant from Egypt will cover the cost of construction, which will take at least 12 months.