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Damascus, Syria (AP)-Abdularzak al-Jenn with his solar panel on the roof of his apartment, dust the dust with the scene of Damascus. Syrian’s largest city was mostly pitch-black, some spots of light coming from other houses were able to bear solar panels, batteries or private generators.
Al-Jenn went into a debt of thousands of dollars to buy his solar panel in 2019. It was an expensive sexual system at that time, but without it, he could not charge his phone and run the refrigerator.
Syria did not have more than four hours of electricity per day for years as a result of a 14 -year civil war that ended with the expulsion of former President Bashar Assad in December.
New Syrian leaders are hoping that renewable energy will now exceed a patchwork solution. Investment has started returning to the country with lifting American sanctions, and major energy projects have been planned, including an industrial scale solar farm that will protect the tenth part of the country’s energy needs.
Syrian Interim Energy Minister Mohammad Al-Bashir told Associated Press, “The solution to the problem is not putting a solar panel on the roofs.” “It is gaining enough power for families through our network in Syria. This is what we are trying to do.”
Some attempts focus on repairing the infrastructure destroyed in the war. The World Bank recently announced a $ 146 million grant to help in transmission lines and transformer substations that damage Syria. Al-Bashir said that Syrian infrastructure has been repaired, half the country’s needs can provide about 5,000 MW, but fuel and gas shortage have hindered generations. With restrictions, this supply may come soon.
More importantly, Syria recently signed an energy deal of $ 7 billion with a union of Katri, Türkiye and American companies. In the next three and a half years, the program will develop four combined-cycle gas turbines with an estimated total production capacity of about 4,000 MW and 1,000-megawot solar fields. Al-Bashir said that it would widely secure the needs of the Syrian people.
While Syria is initially focusing on fixing its existing fossil fuel infrastructure to improve the quality of life, helps re -functioning businesses, and attracts investors, the United Nations development program said in May that an renewable energy plan will be developed for the country in the next year.
The scheme will look into Syria’s estimated energy demand and determine how much it can come from renewable sources.
Representative Sudeepto Mukherjee, a resident of UNDP in Syria, announced the plan, saying, “Given the important role of energy in Syria’s recovery, we will have to address energy poverty rapidly and expedite reaching reaching progressively renewable energy.”
While the war caused significant damage to the infrastructure of Syria, the Vashington -led sanctions imposed during the decades of Draconian rule of the Assad dynasty dismissed, making it impossible for Syria to gain power to fuel and spare parts.
Al-Bashir said, “In the previous period many companies tell us the impact of restrictions, implementing imports, implementing projects, transfer money, and so on.”
During a visit to Turkey in May, the minister said that Syria only 1700 MW, slightly less than 20%, could secure its energy needs.
A series of executive orders by US President Donald Trump lifted several restrictions on Syria, which aims to eliminate the country’s isolation from the global banking system to make it viable and rebuild itself.
The United Nations estimates that the Civil War caused a loss of hundreds of billions of dollars and economic losses across the country. Some 90% live in Syrian poverty. Buying solar panels, private generators or other means of producing its energy is out of reach for most population.
Syrian-Swiss economist and researcher Joseph Dahar said, “Any economic reform requires a functional energy sector,”, who said that stop-gap measures such as solar panels and private generators were available only for some that could tolerate it. “There is also a need to reduce the cost of electricity in Syria, which is one of the most expensive in the region.”
In recent years, electricity prices rose as a country under their former rulers and were struggling with inflation and returned to subsidy. The new officials inherited the situation say that lifting the restrictions will help them to improve the country’s financial and economic crises, and will provide adequate and inexpensive electricity as soon as possible.
“Executive order enhances the most obstacles for political and economic investment with Syria,” said the Qutbiba Idlibi, which leads the US section of the Ministry of External Affairs.
Syria has been under Washington -led sanctions for decades, but the designation intensified during the war began in 2011. Even with some exemption for human programs, it was difficult to bring resources and materials to fix the important infrastructure of Syria-especially the more power-crisis of the power-series of the electric-series, which remain in poverty.
The Idlibi stated that American businesses are serious in support of Syria’s recovery to remove sanctions.
“Right now, we have a partnership with the United States because any normal country will do,” he said.
Meanwhile, Al-Jenn is capable of turning both his fans on a hot summer day, while he sees the afternoon news on TV, as the temperature rises to 35 ° C (95F). He does not want to let his solar panel go, but is expected to bring a permanent state electricity across the country by lifting the sanctions.
“We can at least know what is going on in the country and watching on TV,” he said. “We were really cut off from the whole world.”
Cheheb reported from Berut.
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