Syria’s energy output capacity is in serious need of rebuilding following the war [Getty]
Syria suffered a nationwide power outage on Tuesday night due to malfunctions at several points in the national grid, a spokesperson from the energy ministry announced.
Local media reported that the outage occurred because the Aleppo power plant went out of service, which caused all power stations to shut down one after the other.
Power to cities will only return several hours after the power stations can restart. On Monday, the electricity supply was completely cut off in the provinces of Daraa and Suwayda in southern Syria after a high-voltage 230 kV line went out of service.
This was reportedly due to an attempted theft that affected the line connecting the Deir Ali and Sheikh Miskin stations, according to the Daraa 24 Network.
Power has returned to the provinces of Homs, Hama and Tartous and will gradually return to the rest of Syria’s provinces, the state news agency SANA quoted the director general of the Public Establishment for Transmitting and Distributing Electricity as saying.
Syria suffers from severe power shortages, with state-supplied electricity available for only two or three hours a day in most areas. Damage to the grid means that generating or supplying more power is only part of the problem.
Damascus used to receive the bulk of its oil for power generation from Iran, but supplies have been cut off since the overthrow of dictator Bashar al-Assad in December, whose regime was propped up by Tehran.Â
The almost 14-year-long Syria civil war has taken a massive toll on Syria’s capacity to generate electricity, with Assad’s bombing campaigns often deliberately targeting power stations in opposition-held areas.
According to Omar Shaqrouq, the former Minister of Electricity in the previous caretaker government, only six power generation stations are currently operating on Syrian territory, but not at full production capacity.
He explained in a statement to The New Arab’s Arabic sister outlet Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that only about 40% of the power plants in service are operating at their full operational capacity, and that the volume of electricity generation in Syria is 500 megawatts at any given moment, which amounts to 30,000 megawatts daily.
The government under President Ahmed al-Sharaa has pledged to quickly ramp up power supply, partly by importing electricity from Jordan and using floating power barges.
Damascus also said it will receive two electricity-generating ships from Turkey and Qatar to boost energy supplies.Â
