1. Photovoltaic Market in Lebanon Opportunities and Barriers
Energy Lebanon
Session1:Strengths,Weaknesses,OpportunitiesThreats .Overview of the Solar Photovoltaic Market in Lebanon
5 June 2014
Planit for Life
Photovoltaic Market in Lebanon Opportunities and Barriers By
Mr. Rabih Osta
Area General Manager

2. Overview Phoenix Group: Global Presence Map and activities
Barriers : of the PV solution market
Driving initiatives
BRSS
Simulations
Recommendation

3. What is good for our community and our staff …
Is good for our companies
These group of companies as well as Phoenix are driven by the Philosophy set by the founder G Frem
2014
Over 55 companies
Over 9400 Employees
Around the Globe

4. Our business style is governed by a set of values which are :

11. Phoenix Technology USA Phoenix Innovation USA Phoenix Technology UAE
Phoenix Cluster
Phoenix Machinery
Phoenix Technology
Phoenix Energy
Phoenix Technology USA
Phoenix Innovation USA
Phoenix Technology UAE

12. Phoenix Energy Product Portfolio
Our mission in Phoenix Energy is to contribute in the reduction of the world’s dependency on harmful sources of energy by providing the Lebanese & regional markets with ecological, economical products & engineering solutions

13. Phoenix Energy Product Portfolio

14. Phoenix Energy Product Portfolio
Power plants

15. Phoenix Energy Competitive Advantages
Emerging from its sister companies:
Phoenix Technology USA built a 550kWp PV system in Savana (USA) in 2009.
Phoenix Technology Holding Built a 30MW Biomass power plant in Reading, Pennsylvania in 2011
Phoenix Machinery is a SIEMENS solution partner with Automation engineers, steel structure designers, and a team of highly skilled technicians and a project management division
Phoenix Energy is Yingli Energy Partner (largest PV manufacturer in the world)
Phoenix R&D center
Allocating 15% of the cluster Net profit for the development of Renewable energy project , soon you will hear about Lebanese inventions.
In addition to our Social responsibilities and Values which are translated into collaboration with the NGO ‘s and the municipalities .

16. Current PV situation in Lebanon: Barriers
98% electrified and isolated sites are rare
EDL still have monopoly
Electricity tariffs have not changes for 15 years
Electricity tariffs do not cover the real cost of production and distribution.
An inadequate consideration of the environmental impact and public health due to atmospheric pollution.
Despite these favorable conditions and the favorable geographical location of Lebanon , the installed photovoltaic power in last years didn’t exceed some 100KWs(less than 500kW) and this is due to several barriers .

17. Barriers No laws allowing the Access to the Grid through feed in
Lack of Environmental Commitment.
Small available areas in the country .
NO Buy-Back for Excess Power in case of the Net metering .
Limitation in the Net Metering to 60 KVA
Political instability and political prioritization
Political is also a major reason. Rising concerns on other more pressing national issues are given higher priorities compared to RE in the Parliament and in the Council of Ministers.

18. Driving Initiatives
At the level of Policies and Legislations: The Net metering has been launched in 2011.
Availability of Funding: NEEREA played a major role in availing the funds for PV
The participation and commitment of the private sector
The Public Awareness is also playing a major role in spreading the Electrical solar systems: through a lot of technical conferences, workshops , training
Commerciality and Competitiveness: A lot of competent local organizations are now active in the market
Despite all the above mentioned barriers , A lot of initiatives have been made which contribute in the actual exceptional growth that we are witnessing in the PV market in Lebanon
Net metering : this initiative solve partially the problem of the storage batteries however it has 3 major limitations :1- limitation to 60 KVA 2- When we have a black out , there is no possibility to feed the generated power 3- Limited to the entity consumption
NEEREA:and in fact a lot of Medium size projects are actually picking up
Commercility :the major reason behind it, is the launching of many public bids for solar street lights and lately the most important bid to build 1 MW over the Beirut River which has been won by a Lebanese group of companies in which Phoenix is one member of this consortium .
, Here

19. Beirut River Solar Snake
LCEC and the Lebanese Ministry of Energy and Water launched the BRSS Project expression of interest (EOI) bid in April
With 25 out of 56 interested companies  major companies bidding for the project, only 11 companies passed the technical stage.
5 companies entered the final stage
Phoenix  – ASACO joint venture won the bid based on:
Highest technical score
Best price 

20. Beirut River Solar Snake - Design
Beirut River Solar Snake or BRSS, is a 1.08 MWp PV plant
Stretched over the river bed of 32 meters span and more than 300 meters long
Built over a river with an area of m2
Ability to generate 1620 MWh Annually
A substation is also offered that will contain the control room and the MV equipments .

21. Beirut River Solar Snake - Design
PV array is made of 3600 YINGLI panels YL 300p-35b
60 string inverters
Panels are physically divided into 30 sheds (60 panels each)
This decentralized topology offers:
Increased availability of the plant (above 99%)
Large MPPT numbers decreasing mismatch losses
Lower Maintenance costs
Modular and Expandable
The PV plant is equipped with a monitoring system, a complete weather station that enables the user to highlight any un-optimized performance of any inverter in the plant.
MPPT ( max power point tracking ) variation in the current to maintain the voltage ,

22. Beirut River Solar Snake

23. Beirut River Solar Snake

24. Simulations
Simulation 1: highlighting the favorable geographical Location of Lebanon
System Capacity : 200 KWp
Estimated Project Price :300,000 USD

25. Simulation 1

26. Simulation 2: highlighting the Advantage of the on-Grid solution

27. On Gird PV system /sync with Generator
The system runs in sync with the Grid or the Generator
The inverter is in charge of the synchronization with the other sources.
Automation system is added to ensure proper operation with the generator
The Automation system shuts down the inverters sequentially to keep the PV production less than the demand in Generator Mode
The Automation system is also responsible to protect the generator from running on IDLE mode, in case the demand is low.

28. On Gird PV system - Concept
Gird is ON PV
Inject to grid if
PV> LOAD
Automation System

29. On Gird PV system - Concept
Gird is OFF PV
Automation System

30. Simulation 2

31. Recommendation Well distributed Grid and less black outs
  An attractive feed in tariff and a long period guarantee
Tax exemption and incentives / rebate program for Renewable energy products
Removing the custom duties on the renewable Energy products
 Implementation of CDM and Green Credits
I would like to list some Market Incentives that can help in the PV market growth
Finally, I would say that all the stakeholders should collaborate in order to encourage the development of RE sector in Lebanon in all their forms as well as the development of the local manufacturing of the systems creating employment opportunities and some independence in the supply of equipment

32. Thank You Rabih Osta Area General Manager Rabih.osta@phoenixlb.com