The municipality of Moukhtara located south of Beirut in Lebanon, and project partner of GreenBuilding, organized a workshop on Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy in Moukhtara town and its Club House. The workshop took place on the 5th of February 2022

What is happening in Lebanon?
The energy issue is considered crucial in every wat, especially as Lebanon is facing one of the most severe electricity crises in its history, Lebanese people are suffering from near-complete power outages where the public utility doesn’t provide more than two hours of electricity per day, and the private generator sector has filled the gaps, but with abolition of subsidies to owners of private diesel generators, who are also struggling to find fuel themselves, forcing them to raise prices, impose blackouts and make this vital utility inaccessible to many families and small businesses already suffering from the severe economic crisis. All these issues impose an extra burden on municipalities to stand by its citizens and try to help them and provide them with basic needs such as electricity which has a direct impact on all other services and sectors.

Workshop actions at a glance!
From the above, energy efficiency and renewable energy sources are considered very important topics in general and in Lebanon in particular. The workshop was divided into two sessions: the first session was about energy efficiency while the second session was about renewable energy! An introduction highlighting the energy crisis and demonstrating Lebanon’s international commitments to reduce gas emissions and increase energy production from renewable energy sources initiated the workshop actions.
Among the relative international commitment of Lebanon, Moukhtara Municipality presented a Sustainable Energy Access and Climate Action Plan (SEACAP) for Moukhtara village which has been developed in coherence with Lebanon National Climate Change Policy.The policy set advanced concrete strategic objectives, measures and instruments, to adapt the country to climate change impacts in each involved sector (water, energy, coastal areas, agriculture/food security, health, tourism, biodiversity, and socioeconomic situation/poverty). Moukhtara established its SEACAP in harmony with the National Strategy and action plan for sustainable consumption and production for Lebanon.
At the municipal level the workshop highlighted the importance of raising awareness by the municipality to its residents through continuous workshops, seminars and through the imposition of some incentives in this regard. This is revealed mainly through the imposition of some conditions by the municipality for the issuance of a building permit such as the obligation to install solar water heaters as this will save use of electricity. An additional incentive under building law is to encourage double-insulated walls that are not included in the cladding. The results of GreenBuilding pilot studies were used as examples to present the last measures on energy efficiency and significant energy gains from the installation of renewable energy solutions. 

Participants reaction
Based on the evaluation results of the workshop, the participants were really pleased from their participation in the Lebanese partner event and they stated that they learnt a lot both on energy efficiency measures and on the use of renewable energy sources.  One of the participants commented the following “every day, we pay more for energy than we should because of poor insulation, inefficient lights, appliances, heating and cooling equipment – money we could save by investing in energy efficiency”!

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