سیستم برق لبنان در زمینه توسعه پایدار

The Lebanese electricity system has been evaluated in terms of its sustainability. An integrated approach was adopted to assess the life-cycle technical, environmental, energy and economic attributes of the system. The findings show that the Lebanese electricity system is characterized by a weak performance in all analysed aspects related to the sustainability of energy systems. Specifically, the system lacks adequacy and security leading to a supply–demand deficit and poor diversity. It gives rise to significant environmental emissions (including green-house gases), and produces large economic inefficiencies. The costs and benefits of optimising the performance of the centralised electricity system are presented, indicating substantial net benefits (together with considerable benefits in reduced environmental impacts across the life-cycle assessment categories, including carbon emissions) from improving the transmission and distribution networks, upgrading existing conventional plants to their design standards, and shifting towards the use of natural gas. The expected levelised cost of various energy sources in Lebanon also indicates that renewable energy sources are competitive alternatives at the present time.

The challenge of any electricity system is to deliver reliable and continuous power to meet the economy's total needs at all times and at a reasonable total cost. However, with the growing concerns about climate change, coupled with local pollution implications on human health and ecosystems, the overall environmental performance of an energy system should receive attention on a par with reliability considerations. ‘Sustainable development’ may be seen therefore as an overarching goal of development or ‘sustainability’ (Hammond, 2000). As ‘sustainable development’ requires that “present generations meet their needs without compromising future generations’ ability to meet theirs” (World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), 1987), it becomes a necessity for current generations to use non-renewable energy resources most efficiently (i.e., produce a unit of output with least input), decouple energy consumption from environmental pollution (including greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions), and invest in renewable energy resources. Investing in the latter will enable the current generation to bequeath non-renewable fuels to future generations (Vob, 2006). The current Lebanese electricity system (LES) has been assessed in the context of sustainable development, and more specifically against the characteristics of a ‘sustainable electricity system’. It attempts to examine the subject from an integrated approach as recommended in Hammond and Winnett (2006), Allen et al. (2008a) and Hammond et al. (2009), specifically relying on environmental life-cycle assessment (LCA), energy analysis and economic appraisal, in addition to a reliability assessment. Section 2 attempts to define what the characteristics of a sustainable electricity system actually are. Section 3 describes the current Lebanon electricity system, while Section 4 evaluates this system through an integrated appraisal toolkit. Discussion and conclusions are presented in 5 and 6, respectively.

The Lebanese electricity system has been evaluated in terms of its sustainability through the application of several integrated appraisal techniques. Reliability has been assessed via the LOLP and the S–W index. Environmental performance has been assessed through a LCA and the CML 2001 LCA impact assessment method. Energy performance was measured via the ‘energy gain ratio’, while economic performance has been presented via the NPV and the levelised cost indicators. The findings show that the Lebanese electricity system is characterized by a weak performance in all analysed aspects related to the sustainability of energy systems. Specifically, the system lacks adequacy and security through its supply–demand deficit and a low diversity index. Similarly, the LCA provided a general indication of the poor environmental performance of the current system, particularly when compared with the European situation (Fig. 5 and Fig. 6). The LCA also shows the relative environmental merits in shifting towards situations that exclude heavy fuel oil-based generation, but also towards natural gas based generation and improved T&D networks. Furthermore, the current electricity system is characterized by large economic inefficiencies. The costs and benefits of optimising the performance of the centralised system points to substantial net benefits from improving the T&D networks, maintaining conventional existing plants to achieve their design standards, and shifting towards the use of natural gas. Moreover, the expected levelised cost of various energy sources in Lebanon (Fig. 9) indicate that renewable energy sources are highly competitive alternatives to consider and support to meet this reliability objective. Any measure to improve one aspect of the sustainability of the Lebanese power sector (for example, reliability), at the significant expense of another (for example, environmental performance), would not be considered a ‘sustainable solution’. However, the integrated appraisal of the Lebanese electricity sector presented has shown that significant improvements of the energy system could be achieved simultaneously in all three aspects of reliability, economic affordability, and environmental performance. Solutions have been shown to be cost-effective, environmentally justified, and ultimately more beneficial to the reliability of the entire system. Moreover, when the impacts of the energy sector are seen against the potential consequences and/or costs of climate change (at least) in Lebanon, particularly concerns over impacts from reduced freshwater availability (see United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and Ministry of Environment (MOE), 1999; UNDP, 2009), policy makers would be better able to integrate (and relate) environmental concerns with economic ones, and move the country along a pathway towards ‘sustainability’.