Libya electricity blackout protests expose country’s failing grid

Night in Libya no longer begins with sunset, but with the hum of private generators as entire neighbourhoods are plunged into darkness and those unable to afford alternative power are left to endure the heat.

Amid a blistering heatwave with temperatures exceeding 48 degrees Celsius (118 degrees Fahrenheit), chronic power cuts have ignited a new wave of protests and civil disobedience across the capital, Tripoli, and surrounding areas.

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Frustrated by outages lasting around 10 hours a day, predominantly young protesters have shut down major roads, burned tyres, and blockaded public buildings. Demonstrators also emptied a truckload of earth outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tripoli,  blocking access to the building, as they demanded accountability for alleged corruption and the immediate dissolution of Libya’s fractured political institutions.

The civil disobedience campaign, spearheaded by the Souq Al-Jumaa Movement and joined by activists in Tajoura and Janzour, aims to paralyse the Government of National Unity (GNU) over the severe deterioration of basic services.

The crisis took another sharp turn when another group of protesters stormed the Mellitah oil and gas complex on Tuesday, forcing the National Oil Corporation (NOC) to halt operations at the El Feel oilfield and partially suspend the Wafa field. This disruption severely constrained the gas supplies needed for power generation, knocking out multiple electricity generation units. Although the GNU later secured the complex and resumed gas pumping, the fragility of Libya’s energy sector remains glaring.

As the country grapples with domestic turmoil and decaying infrastructure, international actors continue to press for political cohesion. Massad Boulos, the United States adviser for African affairs, recently held discussions with GNU Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, emphasising the urgent need for Libyan unification and security cooperation to achieve long-term stability and prevent further state fragmentation.

Libya has been fragmented since 2014, when a war pitted forces largely based in the west of the North African country against others largely based in the east. That division has continued despite a 2020 ceasefire, with the internationally recognised GNU operating out of Tripoli, and a rival administration loyal to renegade military commander Khalifa Haftar in the east.

‘Tired of empty promises’

For ordinary Libyans, the crisis has become unbearable. Roa Nasef, an energy systems engineer who recently returned to Libya after seven years abroad, expressed her frustration.

She told Al Jazeera that Libyans are “fed up with repeated promises” and the constant reliance on temporary workarounds. Stabilising the grid, she stressed, requires modernising transmission networks and adopting a long-term vision that incorporates renewable energy, rather than just announcing projects that never materialise.

The problem is one experienced by the whole country, not just those in Tripoli and western Libya.

Areej Badr, a resident of Benghazi, in the country’s east, told Al Jazeera that the situation is “tragic”. Badr noted that owning a generator is now the only way to have a reliable way of maintaining power throughout the day.

She explained that power cuts disrupt water supplies and spoil food, exponentially exacerbating the suffering of the sick and elderly.

A systemic collapse

While public anger mounts, energy experts and former officials point to a systemic collapse that has been decades in the making.

A former official at the General Electricity Company of Libya (GECOL), speaking to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity, said one of the main causes of the crisis was a failure to complete major strategic projects launched before 2011, including the Gulf steam power station near Sirte and the West Tripoli steam power station.

Both were designed as four-unit plants with a total planned capacity of 1,400 megawatts each. But the West Tripoli project remains unfinished, while only two of Sirte’s four 350 megawatt units have been connected to the grid, leaving half of it incomplete.

The delays have left Libya more dependent on older facilities, many of which require extensive maintenance. The former official said that the relative improvement in electricity during 2023 and 2024 largely resulted from gas-fired plants that had been contracted years earlier, rather than a comprehensive overhaul of the sector.

Those projects added capacity and reduced deficit, he said, but did not eliminate it or keep pace with the annual increase in demand, which he estimated at up to 600 megawatts.

Energy expert Ahmed al-Meslati said that concentrating solely on generation capacity also overlooked serious weaknesses in Libya’s infrastructure and delayed maintenance, meaning that electricity could not always be delivered reliably, he told Al Jazeera.

He added that Egypt’s resumption of electricity exports in July offered only limited relief, supplying about 70 megawatts – a small contribution compared to Libya’s overall needs.

Rabie Khalifa, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Electricity in Libya’s parallel eastern-based government, told Al Jazeera that the latest outages were not solely caused by fuel shortages, explaining that a 400-kilovolt transmission line had failed under peak summer demand.

That triggered cascading shutdowns at power stations and a sharp fall in grid frequency that led to a widespread collapse.