GoKawiilDamascus must be the most solarised city in the Middle East. Panels adorn almost every apartment building, villa and hotel, with workers hammering away to install more. From calamity has come opportunity, and an alternative path to the region’s solar future.
Syria’s high level of solar panels reflects the combination of a broken-down grid during its long civil war, and the sudden rush of cheap China-made panels and batteries. The national network provides at best about four hours of electricity per day. Local diesel generators are widely used, but fuel is still scarce and expensive for most people.
Electricity generation, which reached about 45 terawatt-hours in 2010, tumbled to under 20TWh by 2015 and did not recover. Now, the new post-Assad government is hurrying to restore gas supplies and repair dams and power stations, but this is a lengthy job. Solar power is crucial to filling the gap. It could do even more.
The change is remarkable. The Abu Dhabi-based International Renewable Energy Agency began reporting Syria’s off-grid solar capacity in 2022, standing at 249 megawatts. It reached 931MW in 2023, 1,500MW in 2024, and 2,060MW last year. Renewable power by then made up a third of national generating capacity, outstripped in the region only by Lebanon and Jordan. A quarter of Syrian households have some kind of solar power. In war-battered Aleppo, too, panels are everywhere.
Traditional large-scale on-grid installations, of the type made famous by sites such as the Mohammed bin Rashid Solar Park in Dubai, reached just 189MW in Syria by 2025. Agreements have been signed for large projects with Saudi and Qatari-led consortia but could take years to implement. Syria’s sunrise is a story not of government leading, but of people taking their energy needs into their own hands.
The solar panels installed so far can run lights and appliances, and water pumps for farms. Batteries provide electricity during the night. They would be inadequate for electrical heating in winter, and struggle with large air-conditioning demand in summer.
The systems can be easily installed by a local engineer. A basic household set-up of 1.5 to 3 kilowatts costs from $2,500 to $4,500. This is still expensive in a country with per-person income estimated at about $800. Yet people have managed to find the money.
Rooftop revolution
The Syrian story is notable. It reminds us of other regional countries who, suffering from severe blackouts because of economic and political crises, have also rushed to rooftop solar power. These include notably Lebanon, Yemen and Pakistan.
However, Libya and Iraq, which similarly struggle with serious power shortages, are only haltingly beginning to put panels on their buildings. Fuel and electricity there are heavily subsidised, but their people should be much more able to afford solar systems than Syrians. Those subsidies should be directed at solarisation instead.
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