Libya Energy Situation

Overview

Libya
Lebanon Flag.png	Libya Location.png
Capital	Tripoli (32°52′N 13°11′E)
Official language(s)	Arab (official), English, Italian
Government	Interim Government
Head of Government	Abdel Rahim el Kib
Total area	1,759,540 km2
Population	6,733,620 (July 2012 est.)
Rural population	22% of total population (2010)
GDP (nominal)	92.62 billion US $ (2010)
GDP Per capita	14,100 US$ (2010)
Currency	Libyan Dinar
Time zone	GMT+2
Electricity generation	26.95 TWh/year (2008)
Access to Electricity	%
Wind energy (installed capacity)	MW(Year)
Solar Energy (installed capacity)	MW (Year)

Introduction

With about 1,76 sq km, Libya is the second biggest North African country. Located between Algeria and Tunisia in the west and Egypt in the east, Libya also borders the Mediterranean Sea in the north and (from west to east) Niger, Chad and the Sudan in the south. Virtually a hundred percent of its land territory is land area. Apart from the access to the sea (about 12 nm), Libya has no water resources on land, which consists to more than 90% of desert or semi-desert. Libyan climate ranges from Mediterranean along the coast line to extremely dry in the interior when going south. Although the barren, flat and undulating plains allow only a limited amount of land (1.03% of total territory) to be arable, Libya’s soil is hiding great richness. Most prominent natural resources are petroleum, natural gas and gypsum. Especially the first two natural resources are the main driving factor for the Libyan economy. Hydrocarbons contribute about 95% of export earning, 65% of the GDP and about 80% of government revenue. It also due to the fossil matter, that Libya has also always enjoyed a fairly high international interest and relevance. Although the revolution of 2011, which has brought the old regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi to a downfall, has empeded economic goals, it is also widely considered to be an unique opportunity entrepreneurial activity and thus economic growth.

The ethnic composition of the population is mainly given by Arabs, arabized Berbers, Tuareg and Tubu. A vast majority of approximately 97% of the population avows itself to the religion of the Islam (Sunni Muslim). Main national language is arabic.

Libyan politics have been marked by the Arabic spring that took place in 2011. It ended with the defeat of the old Libyan regime and the death of the official ruler of the Libyan Arab Republic Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. The ousted regime had been opposed by the National Transitional Council (NTC) that had formed in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi. After the international recognition of the NTC as the governing body of Libya, an interim government has been officially inaugurated on the 24th of October 2011 with Abdel Rahim el Kib as the head of government. The constituent assembly is supposed to be elected in the first half-year of 2012.

Energy situation

Energy Supply

In 2009, Libya has produced about 87,136 ktoe of energy, which is about 1,013,391.7 GWh. Clearly, crude oil is by far the most prominent energy source, making up almost 85% of energy production. It becomes obvious that Libya's energy production is quite monotonous. Another interesting fact is that renewable energies (at least for the year of 2009) have been neglected entirely. More current sources suggest that renewable energy production has risen to about 1%. Published by the IEA, the table below offers further information on Libya's total energy production in 2009.

Total energy production (2009)

Energy source	in ktoe	in %
Coal and peat	0
Crude oil	73,983	84.9
Oil products	0
Natural gas	12,984	14.9
Nuclear	0
Hydro	0
Geothermal, solar, etc.	0
Biofuels and waste	168	0.002
Electricity	0
Heat	0
Total1	87,136	100.00

¹Due to roundings, the percentages may not add up to a hundred.

Key problems of the energy sector

There are several aspects of the Libyan energy sector that can be considered to be quite problematic. Due to the quantity of fossil energy sources, the former Libyan regime under Muammar Gaddhafi had ignored the opportunities and advantages of a diversified energy sector for a long time. Thus, it had also neglected the massive potential of the introduction of renewable energy technologies to the Libyan energy sector. Instead, it had subsidised electricity coming from domestic fossil energy sources and had developed and maintained a fairly monotonous economy that heavily relied (and still relies) on the occurence of fossils. This will not only aggravate the effort to reform Libya's energy sector, it also cancels out the argument of a possibly positive economic aspect renewable energy technologies are expected to bring along. Taking these thoughts into consideration, the Libyan energy sector is especially problematic in terms of its one-sided composition of the energy sources, turning the entry of renewables into a difficult task.

Institutional setup in the energy sector

Post-revolutionary developments have seen the establishment of a Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy with Minister Awad Ibrahim Bryk at its head. This is an encouraging step towards the integration of the subjects of renewable energy and energy efficiency into the national agenda, as both themes have not been given a ministerial status in the past. Moreover, Libya's energy sector unsurprisingly relied virtually solely on fossil fuels, with renewables playing a very negligible part if any at all. Energy prices for the domestic market were heavily subsidised by the government and renewable energies were not considered to be a likely alternative to the fossil energy resources.

These new developments could be considered to bear the potential of a turn of the tides, as Libya has not only seen the establishment of a new ministry, but also the resumed work of the Renewable Energy Authority of Libya (REAoL) that had accomplished remarkable pre-revolutionary work - although that work had only been in theory. Now with a massive and all-embracing shift in politics, there is a good chance of realizing ambitious goals that have been described by REAoL.