Promoting renewable energy in Libya

Project description

Title: Support for renewable energies as a contribution to conflict resilience in the energy sector
Commissioned by: German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)
Country: Libya
Lead executing agency: Prime Minister’s Office (PMO)​​​​​​​
Overall term: 2021 to 2024

Context

Libya has rich oil and natural gas reserves that are used to produce power. At present, renewable energy sources play scarcely any role in the country.

However, violent conflict is threatening the population’s power supply: the existing power grid is damaged due to a lack of maintenance and acts of sabotage. Moreover, the small number of power stations makes the central power supply vulnerable to disruption and major outages. Added to this are bottlenecks with regard to energy sources, resulting in power outages, especially in the summer months.

Developing renewable energies as a more decentralised power supply can alleviate this situation. However, the legal and regulatory bases for achieving this, as well as the know-how of the employees of institutions and companies in the energy sector, are lacking. Central issues include how to connect independent power producers to the grid and how to calculate remuneration for power fed into it from decentral sources.

Objective

The regulatory, institutional and technological conditions for developing renewable energies have improved.

Approach

Advice and training courses are improving the knowledge and skills of the employees of national and local institutions and authorities. The attendees learn how to create and enforce the legal and regulatory conditions for promoting renewable energies.

The project is providing training for the employees of the Renewable Energy Authority of Libya (REAOL). It is also involving the local authorities wishing to take advantage of this development. Local power supply is more resilient thanks to the use of all technical possibilities as part of a holistic concept. Technical training courses are teaching key actors how to improve the planning and management of the complex issue of connecting numerous, decentralised suppliers to the power grid and how to continue developing the grid in line with needs.

Last updated: February 2022