Domestic energy poverty refers to a situation where the family cannot access basic energy services to meet the daily life needs, the most common of which are lighting, cooking, cooling and heating.
Further to these needs, there are additional basic services related to health, education and communications, and here we will not address the energy need for production and recreation, but rather for survival.
The phenomenon of energy poverty in Lebanon has been recently exacerbated by the harsh rationing of electricity which reached more than 22 hours a day, owing to difficulties in providing the necessary quantities of fuel to operate power plants. Subsidies on basic commodities, including fuel, have been lifted, with the energy costs becoming too high and beyond the reach of many.
This problem is likely to worsen further with the onset of winter, as energy is an urgent necessity for families for heating and cooking, which has and will negatively impact their mental and physical health.
For two years, Lebanon has been suffering under the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the Beirut port explosion, and the economic and monetary crisis. The deterioration of the Lebanese pound exchange rate against the dollar has led to a rise in the prices of goods and services, and the purchasing power of salaries has declined, preventing low and middle-income families from paying bills for basic supplies, including electricity, gas, electric generators subscriptions, and the purchase of fuel.
No lighting and no lights
For months, Lebanon has been in near total darkness, not only are roads and tunnels without lighting, but homes are mostly extinguished as well, or have lights for irregular hours.
Many have had to abandon the generator subscription because of its high bill, and use simpler and more traditional alternatives such as candles and lighting. Some have had to reduce their subscription from 10 to 5 amperes while others have opted to move to the mountain where meter expenses are lower.
Lina Saleh, 35, says: “The cost of 5-amp subscription in my family's house in Beirut reached between one million and one million and 100 thousand per month, whereas before the fuel subsidy was lifted, the 10-amp subscription cost was only 200 thousand Lebanese pounds. This amount is huge.”
It is interesting to note that some generator owners collect the subscription fee in dollars, as is the case in her house located in Aramoun, in exchange for six hours of electricity, from 7 to 12 at night, and sometimes two hours during the day.
Poisonings
Beyond the consequences of the loss of light and lighting, the effects of the power outage have reached the point of threatening people's health and food security. Food poisoning caused by food spoilage in homes, stores and even restaurants has increased, especially with the rising temperatures.
Zahraa (a young Lebanese woman) relates how she suffered for days from food poisoning symptoms which appeared a day after eating at a luxury restaurant in Beirut, and says: “In the midst of continuous power outages and harsh rationing even for private generators last July, I developed strong food poisoning symptoms the day after I visited the restaurant, which is proof that food is not kept in a cold place. And what is worse is that I hardly managed to secure the medicine.”
Zahraa points out to the many cases of poisoning affecting people because of poor food storage in homes as well as in stores where no one knows how to store them, especially chickens, meat and foodstuffs.
Food poisoning reportedly increases usually as temperatures rise, but not like this year, according to Nada Nehme, Vice President of the Consumer Protection Association, who confirmed that there have been many complaints to the association about poisoning caused by eating in restaurants, or by the purchase of spoiled food from a store.
“Loss of electricity affects different aspects of people's lives and makes them more difficult,” she adds. “We are living in unprecedented chaos, and shops control is not enough. Some people simply buy daily food without storing it, knowing that people's purchasing power already dropped,” she says.
In the North, the situation is not much better, as 19-year-old Jalal Daher, a university student from the town of Bqaa Safrin (Danniyah), talks about how many of his townspeople lost the ability to store and refrigerate nutriments and food and became content with buying what they need daily, pointing out that many people lost the food they had in their refrigerator during the heat wave, as they were forced to empty it completely.
Daher adds that many people were unable, as in previous years, to prepare provisions for the winter during the summer season where their expenses are lower since there are no school expenses and no heating costs, but many were unable to do it this year. And this knowing that many have lost their ability to stay up late and play games that bring together family and friends, such as cards.
Gasping for breath too
Lately, many videos have circulated of parents forced by power outages to move their children from one place to another in search of electricity to run ventilators.
This tragedy has been repeated many times over the last period. Layal, a 35-year-old Lebanese woman and mother of four, says: “I always lived in anxiety during the electricity and diesel outages fearing that I would not be able to operate the oxygen machine I permanently use because I suffer from kidney failure and a constant decrease in oxygen.”
And she adds: “I almost lost my life when I felt short of breath and the electricity was out, had my husband not hurried to turn on our private generator so I could use the oxygen machine,” wondering: “how long will we live this nightmare?”
Due to harsh power rationing, the owners of private generators that provide electricity were forced to resort to rationing as well because of the rise in fuel prices after the lifting of subsidies and the repeated fuel shortage.
In the same context, many children who were allowed to attend school, are forced to continue their lessons in the dark and without electricity, and the crisis has been further exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic and the adoption of a distance education system. And the daily challenge faced by students, and even teachers and parents remains the electricity and the internet availability.
Resorting to firewood
Firewood stoves for cooking have been activated following the high price of the gas bottle, especially in villages and outskirts in the North, South and Bekaa.
The price of the gas bottle had risen significantly due to the lifting of subsidies, which affected people’s ability to buy it in light of the high prices of goods and services and the loss of purchasing power for salaries.
Several regions in Lebanon have experienced a gas, gasoline and diesel crisis in recent months, particularly in periods when subsidies were gradually lifted, with some traders monopolizing fuel to sell it at high prices later.
Oum Fadl, 38, who lives on the outskirts of Tyre (South Lebanon), says: “The gas bottle has become very expensive, and we need at least two per month, therefore I made a firewood stove outside the house I use for cooking and I trim the trees of our garden.”
History doctor and educational counselor, Bilal Yassin, a father in a family of four who lives in the southern town of Majdal Selem, found in the firewood stove an alternative to gas for cooking food during the recent gas outage.
Yassin says, “The idea came to me in the period when the price of gas was rising exponentially, as the price of a bottle of gas rose from 30 to 300 thousand, which is about ten times higher. Also, this substance was not always available on the market, due to monopolies, so we knew that we were heading towards tougher circumstances. And that’s where the idea of the firewood stove came from"
He adds, “And because the traditional stove will not work during rainfall, I contacted a blacksmith in the area, and he built a stove that suits the winter season, and we can light sticks and leaves in it, and its cost is very low, maybe equal to the current price of the gas bottle. It will be ready for cooking as a permanent available alternative.”
And what is remarkable is that such stoves can be used on the rooftops of city buildings. On the other hand, some have set up firewood ovens in their homes because of the high prices of bread and flour.
A harsh winter
Worse still, we are ahead of winter, where people need diesel and gas for heating, and their prices are beyond the reach of many Lebanese.
Jalal Daher says that most of his townspeople in Bqaa Safrin are using firewood, not diesel, for heating this year because they are not well-off. This is currently the case in the South, North and Bekaa, where there is a tendency of the majority of the people to rely on firewood instead of diesel this year, with the exception of well-to-do families or those who have stored liters of diesel from last year.
The price of a ton of firewood has risen dramatically, to around 3 million Lebanese pounds in the Laboueh area for example, and in a simple calculation each family needs between 4 to 5 tons of firewood, which is equivalent to 12 to 16 million Lebanese pounds.
On the other hand, demand for firewood has increased tenfold despite its high prices. Many resort to random collection of firewood and logging, which inevitably affects the forest environment.
The lack of energy for heating means an additional danger that will affect the health of many, knowing that random logging also has negative effects on the environment, and the lack of electricity and gas for cooking will render the reality even more difficult, so is there any alternative?
Alternatives exist, but!
The demand for solar energy installation for personal consumption has increased as it is more sustainable than other solutions and does not require fuel, says to George Azar, owner of a company that sells solar energy solutions.
However, the demand is made by specific groups, which are fairly well-off, especially in light of the low purchasing power of people. According to Azar, the cost starts at $2,500 and rises depending on to the amperes capacity, he said.
Nevertheless, not everyone who adopts this option as an alternative has been able to solve the power outage crisis, as some people use this energy to secure minimum basic needs, such as the Internet, refrigerator and television and nothing more.
Consequences and Response to the Crisis
Economist Patrick Mardini asserts that the impact of energy poverty on various productive sectors is significant, as the lack of electrify, the resort to private generators or the subscription to generators leads to a high cost of industry, agriculture and even tourism, and creates unemployment and capital leakage, thereby negatively affecting economic growth and contributing to increasing poverty rates.
Mardini considers that the root cause for energy poverty in Lebanon is that it prevents anyone from investing in energy, with the state monopolizing this sector, whereas no one can implement an energy project without the approval of the Ministry of Energy.
Therefore, Mardini believes that responding to the crisis starts by first allowing investors and the people and whoever to invest in energy to secure electricity, which can solve part of the problem without relying on the state's finances for funding.
The second solution is the use of renewable energy, which can be adopted as a serious solution in Lebanon, but this also conflicts with the law that prevents investors from producing and supplying energy to the people.
Mardini believes that the solution lies in amending the Lebanese law to allow the entry of energy producers into this sector, whether at the level of renewable or conventional energy.