Status of energy in Syria - Study on how to meet the energy shortage by means of renewable resources

In this paper, a shedding light on the energy status in Syria before, during and after the war, a case statement of Syria's previous and current production of oil and gas, which are the main sources of fuel for power plants in Syria is presented, in the previous decades, Syria used to cover its need of oil and gas, and export the surplus. Electricity is one of the major consumers of primary energy. Since 2011, the electricity sector has been facing serious challenges including the difficulties in providing the fuel necessary to operate power plants and acts of sabotage and looting for various components of the electrical network, which affected the electricity generation as it decreased more than 60% during the war. On the other hand, Syria enjoys abundant renewable resources due to its geographical location, where the number of sunny hours is between 2830 to 3280 annually and the effective wind potential that can be exploited reaches up to 7000 MW, which is nearly equals to the installed capacity of the conventional power plants that used to meet the demand before the war. Later in this paper, a study was presented to the savings achieved by the use of renewable energies in meeting the expected energy deficit in coming years, which is practically the period of rebuilding Syria, as it shows a considerable savings of about 1.8 billion dollars annually, which helps along with implementing smart grid techniques in rehabilitating the electricity network and achieving the plan of the Syrian Ministry of Electricity regarding renewable energies strategy until 2030.