Energy Visions 2035 for Syria

Abstract

The Syria's energy sector will face major challenges in the coming decades. Demand for primary energy is continuously increasing to 23 Mtoe in 2008 and then is decreasing to 8.9 Mtoe in 2017. The limited resources and supply uncertainty of especially oil and gas will lead to increasing price instability. Electricity consumption is changing similarly and amounted to 15 TWh in 2017. Syrian power plants generate electricity at 17.5 TWh using mostly traditional fuels. One of the important challenges for Syria is restricting access to the required amount of traditional fuels. The optimistic estimate of the gross and technical potential of wind energy over the territory of Syria is obtained. The paper estimates the technical potential at 490 TWh per year, which exceeds the maximum electricity consumption by almost 12 times. The gross and technical solar energy is determined. Scenarios of the growth of electricity consumption and its cover through the use of various energy sources are simulated. For each scenario, carbon dioxide emissions estimates for Syria were obtained. The most rational scenario for the development of Syria's energy sector was found. The results show that Syria has huge potentials of renewable energies (solar and wind energy in the first place) and that the exploitation of these sources can solve energy problems in Syria.