Electricity is supposed to be invisible: you flip a switch and get light. In Lebanon, it’s something you plan your whole day around.
Most residents now live with two parallel systems in their heads: EDL hours and generator hours. You learn which appliances you’re allowed to use at 2 pm versus 2 am, when to rush a shower, when to switch off the AC because you’re scared of the next bill. Behind every meter, there’s a family trying to stretch one salary across food, rent, school, and an electricity bill that never really feels under control.
Situational Analysis — What people are living inside
On paper, almost every home in Lebanon is connected to electricity. Urban households report virtually no physical disconnection from the grid, and rural areas are close behind.
In reality, the public utility, EDL, only manages to cover around two-thirds of national demand; the rest is picked up by private diesel generators at much higher prices.
Tariffs on the public grid stayed frozen for decades while fuel costs and the lira’s collapse pushed the real cost of each kilowatt-hour far above what people are billed, leaving EDL dependent on large state subsidies and struggling to offer 24/7 power. Families respond the only way they can, by constantly switching between EDL and generators, trimming usage where possible, and sacrificing comfort during heat waves and cold snaps.
Almost Everyone Lives with a Generator
It is very rare in Lebanon to find a building that relies only on EDL. Across Beirut, Mount Lebanon, the North and the South, almost 90% of all residents now live in buildings that have a generator contract.
For a typical family, that doesn’t just mean backup power; it means a second bill, a second set of rules, and a constant low-level anxiety about fuel prices, ampere limits, and surprise increases.
Where you live and how you’re supplied decide your bill
Generator users pay the most, and some regions are hit harder than others. Private-generator buildings in Mount Lebanon show the highest monthly bills, while households relying only on EDL pay noticeably less for similar basic needs. There are tough choices to make: parents deciding whether to keep the heater on for one more hour, or students studying under dimmer lights to save a little this month.
Same consumption, very different bills
Actual bills are well above the simple baseline almost everywhere. Even when buildings use roughly the same amount of electricity, generator users sit higher on the chart than EDL users. Two families living in similar-sized apartments, using similar appliances, can end the month with completely different bills, just because one building relies more on diesel. The system doesn’t only charge you for how much you use; it charges you for how broken your supply chain is.
Old buildings and weak envelopes quietly punish people
Older, poorly insulated residential buildings come with the highest bills. Poor or average insulation traps heat and cold in all the wrong ways, forcing families to run AC units, space heaters, and dehumidifiers longer just to reach a basic level of comfort. Newer or better-insulated buildings show noticeably lower bills, but most of the housing stock doesn’t fall into the good category.
Energy storage (batteries) helps residents survive outages and shift some usage, but it only reduces the bill a little bit—it doesn’t fix leaky windows, thin walls, or a climate that’s getting more extreme. People are effectively paying a penalty for living in older buildings they rarely had the power to choose or upgrade.
Call for action
What we found is pretty clear: residents in Mount Lebanon are billed the highest for roughly the same comfort, but no region is really okay. Whether it’s Beirut, the North, the South, or Mount Lebanon, most households are dealing with the same mix of unstable EDL hours, heavy generator reliance, and buildings that leak heat and cool air. The patterns in the data all point to the same thing: your bill is shaped more by where you live and how your building is supplied than by how careful you are with turning things off.
So, here’s the ask. At home, focus on the wins you actually control. Run heavy loads in EDL hours, when possible, keep ACs and heaters serviced, and seal the obvious leaks around windows and doors. In your building, don’t carry it alone, coordinate with neighbors or the committee to push for clearer generator terms and small shared upgrades instead of random individual fixes. At a wider level, we should start by helping the people who are hurting the most: families in older, generator-dependent buildings in every region, with support to improve their homes and with fairer electricity prices. The data shows exactly who is paying the highest bills, so we can stop acting like everyone is affected in the same way.
During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic back in 2021, waking up to news of people passing away due to symptoms complications became the norm, but in the midst of the overwhelming news, one man’s story hit us hard. His name was Nader, a 46-year-old from Baabda, a man known for his loud laugh, strong coffee, and long Friday lunches with friends. We knew him as the “office guy”; he was in fact there for everyone, until the day when his lungs failed him. He caught COVID, the symptoms escalated quickly. Within days, his oxygen levels dropped, and despite being admitted to the hospital, the virus was already overpowering a weak cardiovascular system. Everyone was in shock, since Nader was just in his mid-40s, and we expected he’d beat the virus easily. But once the doctors informed us he didn’t make due to his overworked cardiovascular system, we understood it was beyond COVID-19, and not only Nader’s lungs have failed him, but a whole lifestyle and healthcare system.
This raised a bigger question for us: Which areas in Lebanon have unusually high levels of chronic disease that make its residents more at risk during crises? To explore this, we analyzed health data across governorates, focusing on cardiovascular disease (CVD) and hypertension (HTN). We first explored how the percentage of COVID-19 cases out of national totals was distributed, with Mount Lebanon leading in this area.
To understand further the extent of the health risk, we compared these chronic disease patterns to COVID cases in all Lebanese Governorates. What we saw flagged Mount Lebanon as a hight risk Governorate as it has the regions with the highest burden of CVD and HTN also recorded the highest COVID cases. This means that in these areas, the symptoms of COVID-19 will be exacerbated by the existing chronic disease, which leads to more complicates and higher hospitalization rates.
The highest-risk governorate being Mount Lebanon isn’t only about pandemic response. It’s about addressing the silent epidemic of chronic disease that makes future health crises even more dangerous. Based on our analysis, we believe it’s time to expand early screening programs, increase community-level hypertension detection, and strengthen preventive care. Preventative measures are needed so that the most vulnerable groups are able to cope with unprecedented health emergencies. If we focus on prevention now, we can reduce risk and help ensure that stories like Nader’s don’t repeat themselves.
Since I started working in the healthcare sector I’ve always been interested in knowing more about this industry. As such, while exploring the WDI Data I studied several healthcare indicators and it turns out – Lebanon is doing better than we thought! I was intrigued to know what’s beyond those indicators, and luckily I found a detailed dataset about Primary Health Care Centers in Lebanon on The Humanitarian Data Exchange, I was surprised to know we had this many centers.
Could this visualization be a sign of a sound healthcare system ?
Did this awareness in healthcare aid us in containing the Covid-19?
Do you think there is a better future for the healthcare system for Lebanon, or will it be worst?
Personally, I am optimistic..
So here are some things I didn’t know:
There are 174 Operational Primary Healthcare Centers in Lebanon
There are 25 PHC funded by UNHCR
There are 100 PHC that provide subsidized services.
Nabatieh has 0 operational PHCs.
The North governorate has the highest number of operational PHC: 36
In this dashboard, I prepared – using Tableau – a map that shows the different Operational PHC locations in Lebanon filtered by UNHCR Funding. Alongside it, is a bar chart showing the percentage of operational PHC in each Governorate. Finally, at the bottom, you can find a stacked bar chart representing the number of operational PHC per governorate, highlighting those who offer subsidized services.
The following dashboard gives a complete image of the vital statistics in Lebanon starting year 1999 till the year 2018. It can be seen that the number of births has increased over the past few years by approximately 74 percent (top visual). However, during the same period, the number of deaths has increased slightly. The drastic increase in the number of births and yet slight increase in death rate call for further analysis of factors contributing to this improvement such as economic indicators, health care system and other relevant factors. What is worth noting, however, is that the number of divorces have doubled during the same time period. In comparison, the number of marriages has slightly increased between the years 1999 – 2018.
The following dashboard further shows a break down of these four variables (births, deaths, marriages, and divorces) by city and year. Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, has maintained the lowest number of births throughout the years (1999 – 2018). Interestingly, however, North Lebanon has had the highest number of vitals across all four variables throughout the same time period. Bekaa, on the other hand, had a relatively high marriage and divorce rate.
On a separate note, Lebanon has maintained an equal number of births and deaths across both genders throughout the same period (1999 – 2018).
Note that the dashboard is highly interactive. To maximize your experience, please view in full-screen and use filters by year and city as well as highlight by city.
