4th International Conference on Renewable Energy Research and Applications Palermo, Italy, 22-25 Nov 2015

The Chances and Challenges for Renewable Energy

in Libya

Ashraf Khalil*, Ali Asheibi

Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department
Faculty of Engineering, University of Benghazi
Benghazi, Libya
ashraf.khalil@uob.edu.ly

Abstract Libya is the largest oil producer in North Africa. The
oil and natural gas exportation contributes to the most of the
Libyan economical revenue. Some industrial sectors in Libya
essentially rely on this oil. One major sector is electricity
generation which uses gas and fuel to operate the turbines in the
generation stations. Libya currently produces energy of 33 TWH
to meet the demand on the local electricity market. The demand
on energy will substantially increase in the near future as a result
of the economic development in order to build new infrastructure
in Libya after the massive destruction that happened during the
last four years. This will lead to more consumption of oil and gas
which causes a reduction in the national economical revenue and
more carbon dioxide emission. Therefore, Libya should use its
alternative energy supplies to cover some of its load
requirements. The location of Libya on the high centered
radiation area as well as its long coastal line on the
Mediterranean make it one of the countries that have very high
potential for solar and wind energy. There are other available
renewable sources in Libya such as geothermal, biomass and
tidal waves, however, all these sources have less potential in
Libya. In this paper analytical data for the current and future
energy situations are presented. Challenges and obstacles faced
by the renewable energy sector in Libya are briefly discussed and
finally some recommendations for promoting the renewable
energy in Libya are summarized.
Keywords-component; Libya; renewable energy; solar energy;
wind energy
I. INTRODUCTION
Although, the renewable energy has been used in Libya
back to the seventies, the main applications are for powering
small remote loads such as communication repeaters, rural
electrifications, water pumping and Cathodic Protection for the
oil pipelines in the desert. With the ever increasing demands on
the energy, the renewable energy sector in Libya planned a
number of projects in the last decade. The proposed projects
are mainly solar energy and wind energy systems, which are
the best alternatives renewable energy in Libya. For example,
the average solar radiation in Libya is around 7.5 kWh/m2/day
with about 3000 to 3500 sunshine hours per year [1]. The
average wind speed is roughly between 6 m/s and 7.5 m/s at 40
m height [2]. This huge amount of sunshine and wind
distributed over an area of 1,750,000 km2 can provide the
future electricity needs for Libya and its neighbors and can
even be delivered to Europe through High-Voltage Direct
Current (HVDC) links. However is blessed with such a huge
renewable energy resources, their share in electricity
production is negligible.
Libya currently relies entirely on the oil and natural gas for
electricity production. These two conventional resources are
limited and depleted. As the energy demands are increasing
rapidly in Libya which can affect the oil and natural gas
production. This can lead to decrease in the country revenue.
This pushed the energy authority toward a rapid and not well
planned investment in renewable energy. According to the
REAOL (Renewable Energy Authority of Libya) the renewable
energy share is expected to reach 10% of energy demand in
2025 [3]. The planned projects are mainly solar and wind
energy systems. The development of this new technology faces
many barriers. All the planned projects are financing by the
General Electricity Company Of Libya (GECOL) which is a
state-owned company with no room to the privatization or
competition. Due to the inconvenient planning some renewable
energy projects are delayed or suspended. The lack of the
metrological data makes the planning and the decision making
a cumbersome task. Additionally, there are not any good
surveys or detailed studies about the current energy situation
and demands evolution in Libya. With the expected increased
renewable share, many problems could arise. For example the
impact of the renewable energy penetration on the Libyan grid
which has not been studied yet. Because of the aforementioned
reasons and the lack of the awareness and experience in the
renewable energy technology, this new technology is still
viewed suspicious. We can conclude that Libya suffers from
poor research in the area of renewable energy. As a first step
the authors start with the analysis of the energy current
situation and then a number of energy future scenario will be
analyzed [4]. In this paper analytical data for the current and
future energy situations are briefly presented. Simple models
for prediction the energy demands and the oil and natural gas
prices are used through this work. The challenges and obstacles
faced by the renewable energy sector in Libya are discussed. In
order to promote the application of renewable energy a number
of recommendations are made. To the best of the knowledge of
the authors there is no detailed study or analysis to the current
energy situation and the expected scenarios for the renewable

ICRERA 2015
4th International Conference on Renewable Energy Research and Applications Palermo, Italy, 22-25 Nov 2015

energy in Libya and we think that the work in this paper is the
first step in the right direction.

II. THE CURRENT ENERGY SITUATION IN LIBYA

Libya depends entirely on fossil fuel for generating its
electricity demands. Oil and Natural Gas are the main energy
sources. The power plants in Libya depends on the light and
heavy oil with an increase reliance on the natural gas in the
recent years. The next two subsections summarize the current
oil and natural gas situation.

A. The Oil Current Situation

Libya is one of the largest oil producers in North Africa and
currently is around 1 million (bbl/d) barrels per day compared
with 1.68 million bbl/d before the civil war in February 2011.
The total crude oil proven reserves is around 47.1 billion Figure 2. The distribution of the oil resource in Libya [5]
barrels [5]. The crude oil production during the last five years
is shown in Figure 1. The oil production was suspended B. The Natural Gas Current Situation
because of the events which took place in February 2011 [5].
During the 2012 and 2013 the situation in the country The natural gas is ranked as the second precious resource
improved where the production settles around 1.4 million for production. The proven natural gas reserves reported in
bbl/d. Due to the spread of the militias which took the control 2012 is 52.8 trillion cubic feet. Libyan natural gas production
of some important refineries and oil harbors the oil production and consumption is shown in Figure 3.
is suspended in the mid-2013.

Figure 3. The natural gas production and consumption from 2000 to 2013 [5]

As can we see from Figure 3 most of the produced natural

Figure 1. Libya crude oil production from 2010 to 2014 [5]
Before the events in 2011 the main player in the oil
industry was the National Oil Corporation (NOC) which is a
state-owned company. The NOC has a target of 2.5 million
bbl/d by 2015 but this target cant be achieved until the
production levels return to their levels before the conflict in
2011. This recovery needs a secure environment and rest in
order for the international companies to continue the oil
exploration in Libya. Most of the oil resource in Libya is in the
eastern part of the country (this area is called Sirte Basin as
shown in Figure 2) and around 25% in the southern area (this is
called Murzuk Basin).
Libya net oil production is around 1.8 million bbl/d and
around 300 thousands bbl/d are consumed for electricity
production. With the increase in the energy demands this figure
will be increased.
gas is exported. The large change in the gas production starts
when the gas pipeline between Libya and Italy starts
production where most of the Libyan gas is exported to Italy
[5]. The increase in the gas consumption is due to the reliance
on the gas instead of the oil for electricity production.
C. The Current Electricity Situation
To supply the load demands Libya has installed twelve
power plants as shown in Figure 4 [3]. These power plants are
capable for supplying 8.347 GW while the available capacity is
6.357 GW. In 2012 the peak demand reached 5.8 GW in the
summer due the excessive use of the air conditioners. The
instability and the war in the country led to destruction in some
transmission lines and substations. Additionally the increased
number of illegal buildings make the GECOL fail to supply the
electricity for almost all the cities in the country. The GECOL
was forced to apply load shedding plans to secure the stability
of the grid and many blackouts occurred in the last year.

ICRERA 2015
4th International Conference on Renewable Energy Research and Applications
Figure 4. Locations of the electrical power plants [3]
The energy sector relies on the natural gas, heavy fuel oil
and light fuel oil with the percentages shown in Figure 5. The
GECOL increased the dependence on the natural gas in order
to reduce the CO2 emission.
Figure 5. Types and percentage of gas and fuel used in electricity generation
in 2012
The energy consumption is distributed among several load
types as shown in Figure. 6. The residential load is the most
dominated load with 31% of the total consumed energy.
Figure 6. Types and shares of customers of Libyan electricity generation in
2012
ICRERA 2015
Palermo, Italy, 22-25 Nov 2015
The electricity in Libya is generated using gas and steam
turbines with a total number of Fifteen generation stations.
Most of these stations are located in the coastal line, where
most of inhabitants live, as shown in Fig.4. It is worth noting
that gas and fuel are the only sources used to operate the
turbines in the generation stations. Hence, the demand on
energy in future will lead to more consumption of oil and gas
which will lead to a more carbon dioxide emission as well as
reduction in the national economical revenue. The carbon
dioxide emission from electricity generation in Libya is much
higher than that from transportation or industry.
In order to reduce the gas emission from generation
substations, the GECOL has reduced the number of units which
operate with fuel, and increased the gas based ones. Also the
use of combined cycle stations was another alternative solution
to minimize fuel consumption. The GECOL has also improved
its transmission line infrastructure, in order to minimize losses
in the network and to improve its efficiency and reliability. The
total length of the transmission system (220 KV, 400 KV) is
now about 16,000 km, and that of the medium voltage (33 KV,
66 KV) is around 28,000 km.
The use of energy in Electricity generation, industry and
transportation has not been rationalized in Libya due to
different reasons, such as the low price of fuel locally and
energy conservative regulator does not exist in Libya yet.
As another step toward reducing the gas emission beside
the increasing reliance on the natural gas, GECOL has also
built a 400 kV transmission system which increases the
efficiency and the reliability of the Libyan electricity
transmission system. The planned and built 400 kV
transmission systems are shown in Figure 7.
Figure 7. The 400 kV Libyan transmission systems
III. LOAD GROWTH IN LIBYA
The load growth study is one of an essential subjects with
regard to load demand prediction. From the annual report of
the GECOL which shows the energy consumption in Libya
over the last ten years as shown in Figure 8. The regression
equation has been derived and then used to predict the load
growth at about 9% for each consecutive year.
4th International Conference on Renewable Energy Research and Applications Palermo, Italy, 22-25 Nov 2015

from the daily Libyan oil export which is about 1.3 million
8
barrel on average. This will cost the country around 19.4
7 billion a year. This means that there will be a substantial
5.981
reduction in oil exportation as a result of electricity usage
6 5.759 unless the renewable energy technology is adopted. The use of
The Power Consumption, MW

5.515
5.282
clean energy such as wind and solar in electricity generation
5 4.756
4.420 will also lead to the reduction of carbon dioxide emission to
4.005
4 3.857 some extent. The saving in Libya oil and gas resources is not
3.612
3.341 beneficial only to Libya but to the whole world.
3

2
IV. RENEWABLE ENERGY IN LIBYA
Libya planned to make the share of the renewable energy in
1
2020 to be 20% of the generated power. The planned projects
0
are mainly solar and wind energy systems. Libya will generate
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 around 20% of its power in 2020 from solar energy. This will
be around 3 GW (20% of around 15 GW). However the current
share of renewable energy in Libya is negligible.
Figure 8. The energy consumption over the last 10 years

The demand on energy will substantially increase in the A. Solar Energy Resource
near future in an exponential growth as shown in Figure 9 as a The Geographical location of Libya makes it one of the
result of economic development. This will lead to more countries bless with high Solar Energy. Solar energy is
consumption of oil and gas which causes a reduction in the believed to be the most important and feasible renewable
national economical revenue and more carbon dioxide energy source in Libya. Libya lies within the most favorable
emission. The expected increase in electricity demands is sunny zone (between 150 N and 350 N). The rain falls is below
shown in Fig. 9. 150 mm in most of the country. For example, the average solar
radiation in Libya is around 7.5 kWh/m2/day with about 3000
140 to 3500 sunshine hours per year [1]. The solar radiation in
different cities in Libya is shown in Fig. 10.
120

9
100 Benghazi
Expected Load, GWh

Tripoli
80 8 Ejdabia
Jalo
Kufra
60 7
Gadamus
Sebha
k Wh/ m 2 / day

40 6 Shahat

20
5

0
2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 4

3
Figure 9. Expected load demand for the next 20 years
2
As can be expected from Figure 9, The load demand for the Jan Fab Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

electricity consumption will be increased for the long term with

9%. This means that, in the future, the amount of oil used for
Figure 10. The monthly solar radiation in different cities in Libya
electricity generation will be substantially increased. The total
price of oil used for electricity generation, for long term, can be As can be seen from Fig. 10 the high solar radiation during
calculated from the electricity demand as each barrel of oil can the summer. The maximum load increases greatly in the hottest
produce 1628 KWh in three steps: months in summer (June, July, Aug, Sept and Oct). The main
First the expected load demand for any prospect time can reason is the excessive irrational use of air conditioners. Also
be figured out from Figure 9. Second this amount of oil can be the load demand increases in the coldest months in the year
converted to no of barrels by dividing it over 1628 KWh. (Jan, Fab and Dec). The behavior of the electrical loads in
Finally, this number of barrels is multiplied by its price Libya and the sun radiation in the region has been studied to
predicted by OPEC [6,7]. show that an efficient peak load shaving can be achieved using
solar energy. Fig. 11 shows the load profile based on maximum
For instant, in 2030 the expected load demand will be 120 load throughout one year and the measured temperature at the
GWh and the number of barrel to cover this generation per day region. The correlation of the temperature and the load
is 194 thousand barrels (bbl/d). This number will be subtracted demands is clear in the figure.

ICRERA 2015
4th International Conference on Renewable Energy Research and Applications Palermo, Italy, 22-25 Nov 2015

electricity production. The expected increase in the load

40 6
demands can be compensated by putting the renewable energy
Winter train on the track. Based on 100$ price for the crude oil price
Summer Winter per barrel the cost of the kWh produced by oil is 0.176$ the
35 5.5
average cost of the kWh produced by PV in Libya is around
0.123$ which is much cheaper than burning the precious crude
oil. What the country needs is stability, security and political
Temperature, C

Max Laod, MW
30 5

well. The electricity in Libya is subsidized and it is better for

the GECOL to spend on emerging the renewable technology
25 4.5
into the country.
As most of the loads are residential and in addition to the
20 4 commercial loads they count to 44%. The excessive heating
and conditioning can reduced by penetrating solar and wind
energy. It worth noting that around 19% of the loads are street
15 3.5
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 lighting. The GECOL relies on very old and inefficient street
lighting systems. Replacing these old fashioned inefficient
technology with LED solar street light system can achieve
Figure 11. The load profile and the average temperature throughout the year energy consumption and reduce CO2 emission.
The renewable energy Libyan plan is shown in Fig. 14 [8].
B. Wind Energy Resource The plan is divided into four basic phases. Due to the instable
Wind energy is the second best alternative renewable situation in Libya this plan is suspended. Now in 2015 the 6%
energy source. The wind speed in some coastal cities is shown target has not been achieved because of the instability.
in Fig 12. The average wind speed at three different heights in Additionally there is no true will to launch these projects. As
different cities in Libya is shown in Figure 13. an example of the bad planning. The first phase of the plan was
to build 60 MW wind farm in the city of Dernah, the project
lasts from 2008 to 2012. The farm consists of 37 wind turbines
each rated 1.65 MW. Due to some issues about the ownership
of the land used for the wind farm the project is delayed.

Figure 12. The wind speed in coastal cities in Libya

12 Average wind speed at 10 meter

Average wind speed at 50 meter
Average wind speed at 100 meter
10

8
Wind Speed, (m/s)

Figure 14. The Libyan renewable energy plan

4

2
The GECOL considered only centralized large scale
renewable energy plants in their plans. This is insufficient. In
0 order to promote the renewable technology small and medium
Tripoli Sirt Ejdabia Benghazi Derna Tobroq Shahat Gadamas Sebha Jalu Kufra
scale projects should be considered too. Depending on some
studies for the load of around 75 kWh locates more than 1.2
Figure 13. The monthly average wind speed in different cities in Libya Km from 11 KV grid it is economical and most convenient to
use PV system [9].
Back to Fig. 11 the peak in load demand can be shaved in
the summer with the penetration of solar energy as the solar V. DIFFICULTIES AND OBSTACLES
energy is at its best. In the winter where there is a shortage in
the hours of sunshine the wind energy takes the main role for The electricity in Libya is subsidized because the country
adopted a communist economical system since 1969. By the

ICRERA 2015
4th International Conference on Renewable Energy Research and Applications
time, the consequences of this policy are clear in the irrational
use of electricity by most of the Libyans. Additionally, the
peculiarity of the weather and the inefficient design of the
homes made the air-conditioning unavoidable. It can be
concluded that the increase energy demands in not a result of
the country development but rather a consequence of the
inefficient use of the energy.
VI. RECOMMENDATIONS
Libya should initiate a subsidizing plan and legislations for
renewable energy which includes:
(1) Creation of the awareness among the people of the long
and short term impacts of the wasteful use of electricity. This
can be done through the social media and TV channels.
(2) Legislations and laws for using low power electrical
appliances. This can be achieved through encouraging people
to use the energy efficiently.
(3) Added taxes on the wasteful consumption of the
electricity. After establishing the law and order the country
should put added taxes on the irrational use of electricity.
(4) Initialize the renewable energy market form small-scale
and medium scale projects with fix on simple, fast and easy
installations.
(5) Attract local and foreign investors into the Libyan
electricity market. This point is mainly depend on the political
stability of the country.
(6) Build pioneering projects for wind and solar energy.
These system will be pilot projects where real data about
energy production could be available after a time. Additionally
these projects will create awareness between local people.
(7) Create education and training programs to qualify more
people in the field of renewable energy technology.
(8) One of the make issues is the lack of information about
the solar radiation, wind speed and weather data. Building
small pilot projects with data logging can be viable in this time.
(9) Research and Development: with such a huge country
with high potential for renewable energy, there is only one
research center located at the western part of the country. Libya
should build a number of research center in different parts of
the country.
The work in this paper is to highlight the importance of the
renewable energy in Libya energy mix. The paper paved the
way for more detailed survey on the current energy situation
ICRERA 2015
The author has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. All in-text references underlined in blue are linked to publications on ResearchGate.
Palermo, Italy, 22-25 Nov 2015
and the estimated energy of the planned renewable energy
projects. Furthermore the forecasting of oil and gas prices with
addition to the expected prices of energy generated from wind
and solar sources must be used for future studies. Also the
most suitable renewable technology that will be most suitable
for the Libyan should be investigated.
VII. CONCLUDING REMARKS
The electric energy demand is expected to grow very
rapidly in the next few years; The perfect weather in Libya
with a plenty of land hold the promise to be one of the leading
countries in renewable energy production. The share of
renewable energy technology in Libya still very low despite the
fact that Libya location is optimum for exploiting this
technology. There is a great potential for utilizing, home grid
connected photovoltaic systems, large scale grid connected
electricity generation using Wind farms, and concentrated
photovoltaic system CPS. Solar energy resources in particular
can be of great source of energy for Libya after oil and natural
gas. Renewable energy resources offer good opportunities for
technology transfer and international cooperation. Energy
efficiency can be implemented in both energy consumption and
production sides. Libya should start emergent plan to increase
its share from renewable energy.
REFERENCES
[1] NASA Atmospheric Science Data Centre, NASA Surface Meteorology
and Solar Energy: Available from: http://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/, Last
Accessed 5th March 2013.
[2] Libyan climatic archives, Climate Department, Libyan National
Meteorological Centre (LNMC).
[3] General Electric Company Of Libya GECOL, Annual Report 2012.
[4] Ali Asheibe and Ashraf Khalil, " The Renewable Energy in Libya:
Present Difficulties and Remedies". In the Proceedings of the World
Congress, 2013.
[5] Independent Statistics and Analysis, US Energy Information
Administration: Available from:
www.eia.gov/beta/international/analysis_includes/countries_long/Libya/
libya.pdf, Last Updated 25 Nov 2014.
[6] Bureau of Energy Data and Studies, LNEC Libyan National Energy
Information-sixth edition 2004.
[7] Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries OPEC, World Oil
Outlook, 2012.
[8] Ahmed M. A. Mohamed, Amin Al-Habaibeh, Hafez Abdo and
Mohammad Juma R. Abdunnabi, "The significance of Utilizing
Renewable Energy Options into the Libyan Energy Mix", Energy
Research Journal, 4 (1), 15-23, 2013.
[9] Ibrahim Saleh, "Prospects of renewable energy in Libya". International
Symposium on Solar Physics and Solar Eclipses, pp. 153-161, 2006.