Visiting a solar generation project in September, Assad said the state remained focused on traditional forms of power generation but voiced support for private sector investment in solar and wind generation, the state news agency SANA reported.
He added that the state could act as a partner by buying electricity and selling it on to consumers.
DROP IN THE OCEAN
The following month, Assad issued an amendment to an electricity law aimed at encouraging private sector investment in both traditional and renewable energy by allowing producers to sell power directly to consumers for the first time.
Madian Diyar, head of the Syrian investment authority, said licences had so far been granted for five renewable energy projects, which would produce 200 megawatt hours.
That remains a drop in the ocean compared with the 49 billion kilowatt hours of electricity produced by Syria before the war, according to the government report.
Baraa Sheira, from the central province of Hama, is one of the entrepreneurs who won a license to set up a solar farm.
Output from his 1-megawatt plant, built in 2020 at a cost of about US$800,000, is sold to the state grid. Sheira declined to disclose the price at which he was selling.
“We’re producing one now, but we could produce 10 or 20” – if it were not for some major obstacles, Sheira said.
Sanctions made equipment hard to import and the Syrian pound’s collapse – plus the yawning gap between the official and black market exchange rates – put off would-be investors.
Sheira suggested the state set up a “preferential price” for solar-generated power to compensate for the higher cost of equipment and encourage more investors.
“Today, when we want to rebuild the country and the economy of the country, we want to start with electricity,” he said.
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