Lebanon: solar panels to deal with power cuts

Audio 01:33

In Lebanon, to face the crisis, some NGOs are mobilizing and offering the most needy to switch to solar energy (illustrative image).

REUTERS - LUKAS BARTH

Text by: RFI Follow

2 min

For months, the Lebanese have been mostly in the dark, deprived of public electricity.

A daily life that has become unbearable in a country increasingly in crisis, especially as private generators are posting exorbitant prices with rising fuel prices.

So, to face the crisis, some NGOs are mobilizing and offering the most needy to switch to solar energy.

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With our special correspondent in the Akkar region,

Noé Pignède

On the roof of a house in the village of Miniara, workers attach large photovoltaic panels.

Here, residents only have

one hour of public electricity a day

and private generators have become overpriced.

So, a small association, BeytnaBeytak, is helping residents switch to solar energy. 

“ 

Photovoltaics is free!

We have 300 sunny days a year in Lebanon.

We must take advantage of it.

And that's just the beginning.

The goal is that everyone who needs electricity to survive can have it,

 ”explains César Mrad, project manager.

In this house, an old lady is on life support. The 83-year-old suffers from degenerative lung disease. With the worsening electricity crisis, his life hangs by a thread. An expatriate in Australia, her grandson Joseph organized a fundraiser to help his grandmother. In his thirties, this musician made the trip to Lebanon to follow the installation: “ 

If my grandmother no longer had access to a ventilator at home, she would have to spend the rest of her life in the hospital. This is not a life. So, when I told my friends about it, they very generously helped me to create a fund, to support the Lebanese here, in my village, and to offer them more sustainable and ecological solutions.

 "

Joseph's fundraiser has already reached tens of thousands of dollars.

After offering these photovoltaic panels to his grandmother, he now plans to install them in schools and hospitals nearby.

► Also to listen: Lebanon: two years after the anti-regime protest, the country is out of breath

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  • Lebanon

  • Energies

  • Economic crisis