Lebanon now relies on diesel-powered generators for about half of its electricity supply, further exposing the crisis-hit country to financial, environmental and operational risks, according to data for an upcoming report.
Behind that alarming figure lies a deep-rooted crisis decades in the making.
Interviews with officials, as well as government statistics, studies and testimonies gathered by The National reveal how a largely unregulated industry has been lining the pockets of high-ranking officials and neighbourhood generator owners alike.
The electricity sector has been regarded as one of the most corrupt parts of Lebanon’s sectarian system of government since the end of the civil war in 1990. Those who benefit from the dysfunction have allegedly resisted efforts to repair the sector, preserving a system that lets them continue profiting from its failures.
Figures being compiled by the Lebanese Centre for Energy Conservation for their upcoming report show that private generators accounted for 50 per cent of Lebanon’s electricity supply at the beginning of 2026, while Electricite du Liban, the state utility, provided only 31 per cent.
EDL's share is likely to have shrunk even further over the summer, according to the LCEC, a national agency affiliated with the Energy Ministry.
Meanwhile, the Lebanese people are left to foot the bill. The country's dependence on expensive diesel imports to run generators has sent energy bills rocketing in recent months amid rising global oil prices due to the Iran war, further straining households and businesses already struggling after years of economic crisis.
Among a dozen people interviewed by The National, the median generator bill was $310 in August.
Dependence on generators increased dramatically after a severe economic crisis began in 2019, driving the final nail in the coffin of the dilapidated electricity sector.
As the bankrupt state struggled to secure fuel for its power plants, EDL production fell by nearly 80 per cent between 2018 and 2023, from 15.4TWh to 3.37TWh, according to a 2025 report by the LCEC.
Over the same period, diesel-powered generators' share of Lebanon's electricity supply more than doubled, from 23.1 per cent to 51.5 per cent.
Beirut’s roughly 9,300 generators have barely stopped their relentless humming since then, spewing polluting exhaust into the air and wrapping the capital in a yellowish smog, as they supply electricity to those who can afford it.
“We can’t go on like this,” said Ayman, manager of a shawarma restaurant in Beirut’s vibrant Hamra neighbourhood, who gave only his first name. With state electricity available for only a few hours a day, and at unpredictable times, the restaurant is almost entirely reliant on a private generator, he said.
The small restaurant’s electricity bill for August alone came to almost $20,000. “We’re losing money,” Ayman sighed.
The usually bustling summer season, which he had been banking on to shore up the restaurant’s finances, proved disappointing. With the war between Hezbollah and Israel resuming in March, tourists and even Lebanese expatriates largely stayed away.
“If nothing is done, we will have to close. And not just us, everyone else too,” said Ayman.
While generator bills vary considerably from one area to another because of limited state oversight, data from New Energy Consult and The National's interviews with residents show that monthly bills often exceed $300 – roughly equivalent to the entire monthly minimum wage of 28 million Lebanese pounds.
By comparison, the average household electricity bill in the UK is about $95 a month for a medium-sized household of two to three people.
In one neighbourhood of the capital, a 25-amp generator subscription cost as much as $750 in August, according to New Energy Consult, a consultancy founded by Lebanese energy expert Jessica Obeid.
Ms Obeid said some generator operators had taken advantage of the global surge in oil prices to increase their profit margins. “The problem is that nobody has provided state electricity over the past three decades, and nobody has implemented any serious reforms,” she explained.
“Generators eventually just reflect the failure of the state, the failure of policies and the failure of institutions. So it’s time for state institutions to stand up and do what they’re supposed to be doing: provide electricity.”
'Mass bribe system'
People strolling along Hamra’s main street express their exasperation over soaring energy costs. “It’s insane,” said Karim Agha, 33, who recently returned from Dubai. He said his parents’ electricity bill reached $600 in August, three times what he used to pay in the Emirates.
“I’m scared to look at the bill,” said Talal Fayed, a 67-year-old driver who paid a $300 generator bill in August.
Asked what he expected from the Lebanese state, he sighed and replied with a faint smile: “What state?”
Such vast sums flowing each month from consumers’ pockets into the private generator industry raise the question: why have the Lebanese authorities failed to implement energy reforms that would redirect that money to the state?
Energy experts say vested interests and a lack of political will have prevented a transition towards cheaper, cleaner energy and locked the country into a dangerous dependence on generators.
The diesel generator industry is lucrative: Ali Ahmad, a World Bank expert, estimated its value at around $3 billion in 2020, with roughly $1 billion going to the generator market and $2 billion to diesel importers.
Opposition MP Paula Yacoubian said the generator “cartel” benefitted politically connected individuals and companies that had little incentive to give up their bread and butter.
Generator owners are part of Lebanon’s clientelism networks, she argued, able to offer benefits such as forgiving unpaid bills in exchange for political support. “It's a mass bribe system,” she told The National.
A systemic lack of investment and squandering of public funds have left Lebanon’s energy sector in shambles. About 40 per cent of electricity entering EDL's network is lost between technical distribution and commercial losses such as theft and illegal connections, according to a 2024 EDL report.
With its battered financial sector and unstable security situation, Lebanon has struggled to attract foreign capital since 2019. But lack of investment in the energy sector is not new. The state has not built a major power plant in decades. Its newest large plants, Deir Ammar and Zahrani, date back to the late 1990s.
“With $1 billion, you can build a 1,000MW power plant. It's nothing. People are already paying for it with their generator bills,” Ms Yacoubian said.
EDL has about 3,000MW of nominal installed capacity, but in 2023 it supplied electricity equivalent to just 13 per cent of its theoretical maximum output. The country needs about 3,000MW of electricity to meet daily demand.
Only two of Lebanon’s seven thermal power plants are operational, because the cash-strapped state cannot buy enough fuel and badly maintained infrastructure limits production.
A 1,000MW plant operating at an 80 per cent capacity could produce about 7TWh annually, more than twice EDL’s total electricity supply in 2023, which stood at roughly 3.4TWh, according to LCEC. “This is not a technical problem,” Ms Yacoubian said.
For over two decades, political bickering has stopped all major investment projects in Lebanon.
“Power plants are routinely built everywhere else in the world. Anyone, my aunt Salma included, could bring electricity,” she said. “But there are no politically affiliated politicians who were able to do it in Lebanon.”
Powerful oligopoly
Energy Minister Joseph Saddi said he was well aware that the remedy to the country’s dependence on generators was in investment in electricity generation. “We are now engaging with the private sector,” he told The National. The Energy Ministry has given the International Finance Corporation, the private-sector arm of the World Bank, a mandate to secure the necessary private-sector investment.
“There are investors who are interested, but they require a certain number of financial guarantees. So what we are focusing on now is how we can provide those guarantees,” Mr Saddi said.
The IFC’s role is notably to act as the lead transaction adviser on a public-private partnership for a new 825MW combined-cycle gas turbine plant, a project that has been in the pipeline for years.
Meanwhile, the World Bank has approved a $250 million loan to EDL to upgrade its infrastructure.
Experts say that, even more than generator owners, diesel importers wield significant influence over policy decisions, thanks to their close connections with politicians. A 2022 investigation by Beirut-based research centre Triangle revealed direct links between several of Lebanon’s 13 licensed fuel-importing companies and current or former politicians.
For energy expert Marc Ayoub, who has investigated the sector for years, Lebanon’s diesel importers form an oligopoly with far-reaching political connections. Rather than competing with one another, he said, they collaborate to maximise their margins, sharing the cost of vessels and associated shipping fees before dividing the imported quantities among themselves.
They then sell the diesel, locally known as mazout, according to the price set by the Ministry of Energy, currently about $30 for 20 litres, which Mr Ayoub said allowed them to make comfortable margins. The tariff “contains a lot of hidden profits for importers, in addition to margins for distributors, lorry owners, petrol stations and everyone else involved”, he said.
The Energy Ministry could reduce additional premiums it pays to importers, which he said could lower diesel tariffs by at least 15 per cent. But instead, he said, the state kept “protecting the interests of these private players”.
There is also an issue on the generator side. While the Energy Ministry sets generator tariffs – which have risen by almost 60 per cent in six months – many operators do not comply with them, or even bother to install mandatory electricity meters.
Instead, they charge residents a fixed monthly rate based on the amperage of their subscription, which determines how many appliances consumers can run at the same time.
Despite occasional government crackdowns for overcharging customers and failing to install electricity meters, generator operators have largely been able to set prices at their discretion.
One silver lining of the near-collapse of state electricity supply is that solar panels have soared in popularity, accounting for 19 per cent of electricity production in 2026, up from just 0.4 per cent in 2018, according to LCEC.
None of the people interviewed by The National said they had installed solar panels.
Mr Fayed, the taxi driver, said this would be the only way to move beyond dependency on generator owners and the state, neither of which he trusts. But, like many Lebanese living from pay cheque to pay cheque, he does not have the upfront capital to install solar panels. “Too expensive,” he sighed.
With Lebanon experiencing one of the fastest-growing cancer rates in the world, experts have urged the country to move to cleaner sources of energy.
According to a 2024 study led by scientists from the American University of Beirut, the level of carcinogenic pollutants from diesel generators in the capital's air has doubled since 2017, increasing the risk of developing cancer by 50 per cent.
“It’s suffocating, it’s killing us, it’s loud, it’s expensive … And we know that it is all due to corruption,” Ms Yacoubian said. “I'm telling the Lebanese people to wake up – wake up, and smell the mazout.”
