Green shoots emerge in Libyan reconstruction

Shell, Eni and TotalEnergies signal interest in large-scale solar projects as returning economic growth drives surge in electricity demand

Libya has long been interested in exploiting its vast renewables potential to increase the volume of hydrocarbons available for export, and latterly to compensate for financial and operational shortcomings in its conventional power system. In 2012, the Renewable Energy Authority of Libya (REAoL), having survived the collapse of the dictatorship the previous year, published a strategy through to 2025 that included an interim goal to have wind and solar account for 19pc of generation capacity by 2020. A decade of civil war, extreme political instability and highly volatile oil revenues inevitably stymied progress, and clean energy production remains negligible, comprising only off-grid solutio