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Damascus, Syria – Nasri Tadros sweeps dust away from the electric scooters parked outside his small shop in central Damascus.
“I have three generators for my shop, and this runs on batteries,” he said, pointing to a battery-operated lighter he uses to fire up charcoal. He stepped into the narrow shop that he rents, where he has worked for the past two years, selling and delivering products for hookahs.
Around Damascus, solar panels and diesel generators are a common sight. During the harshest years of the war, they supplemented the sparse state-provided electricity, which only came a few hours a day between long cuts.
As Damascus enters the summer months, there is concern about the dry heat, which reaches the high ۳۰s in Celsius (up to almost ۱۰۰F). However, locals say that while cuts are still common, electricity has recently improved to five or six straight hours of supply before a cut.
“Nothing can work without electricity,” Tadros said, the air conditioning blasting away inside his modest store.
Progress
By the end of the dynastic rule of the Assad regime – father Hafez (۱۹۷۰-۲۰۰۰) and son Bashar (۲۰۰۰-۲۴) – Syria was left in ruins. A popular ۲۰۱۱ uprising was brutally repressed by Bashar and the country slowly crumbled until a rebel operation forced the longtime ruling family into exile.
Bashar al-Assad’s departure in late ۲۰۲۴ was met with great joy by many Syrians, but he left behind a challenge for Syria’s liberators. The country’s economy is in dire straits, and state infrastructure, including the electricity sector, requires serious rebuilding.
As of ۲۰۲۳, before the fall of the Assad regime, Syria received ۵۲ percent of its electricity from natural gas and close to ۴۵ percent from oil, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Only ۳ percent came from hydropower and even less from solar.
In June ۲۰۲۵, the World Bank approved a $۱۴۶m grant to improve Syria’s electricity supply and to develop the sector. When the government of President Ahmed al-Sharaa moved into northeast Syria earlier this year, it took over the country’s largest oil-producing region.
During the war, the area, which was controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), produced about ۱۰,۰۰۰ barrels of oil per day. Now, it is about ۱۰۰,۰۰۰bpd and could reach up to ۲۰۰,۰۰۰bpd by the end of the year. After the Syrian army’s offensive, the government and the SDF reached a ceasefire.
The Syrian government has also secured gas import deals with countries like Azerbaijan, Jordan and Egypt, and in May ۲۰۲۵ signed a $۷bn energy deal with Qatari, Turkish and US firms. Much of this progress has come about thanks to Western sanctions relief, which has been a priority of the new government.
“Consumer tariffs have been restructured, and solar power is helping, albeit modestly, to fill the gap,” John Calabrese, a nonresident senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, told Al Jazeera.
Remaining challenges
However, the gap remains. Almost everyone interviewed about Syria’s electricity situation turned the conversation towards affordability and the high cost of alternative energy.
“I would be lying if I said electricity was not improving,” a shop owner, who asked his name be withheld because he was critical of the new government, told Al Jazeera. “I have solar energy,” he added. “But it’s expensive.”
While solar panels have become a more regular sight in Damascus, solar energy has a high initial investment cost, which means many low-income families, with almost ۹۰ percent of the country below the poverty line, cannot afford it.
“Fuel supplies remain the core bottleneck,” Calabrese said. Syria has been suffering from fuel shortages of late, causing long queues at petrol stations. The energy minister announced on Saturday that supplies of diesel and petrol were being increased, and distribution accelerated.
Other issues also remain. Some reports say the Syrian Petroleum Company is facing internal tensions between the CEO and the board.
“Bureaucratic and governance friction is an obstacle to further progress,” Calabrese said.
Back at the corner store, the shop owner who requested anonymity animatedly waved his arms in the air. “In the first world, electricity is a right,” he said in thick Damascene-accented Arabic. “Here, it is a dream.”
