Offshore Wind Farms to Support Existing Power Plants Case Study: Deir Ammar Power Plant, Tripoli, Lebanon

The current status of the Lebanese electricity system necessitates an urgent solution. Lebanon’s power shortage, manifested in the daily power outages (load shedding), and whose main cause is the insufficient power generation capacity, has become an unbearable event in Lebanon. In view of that, renewable energy technologies emerge as the suitable solution, since Lebanon proves to have a notable renewable energy potential including an important average wind speed, active water resources, high daily solar irradiance, and outstanding geothermal resources. In this paper, a new innovative solution has been proposed to improve the power generation capacity of an existing Lebanese thermal power plant (Deir Ammar). Which is located in northern Lebanon, it is to be supported with an offshore wind farm. This proposal has good potential to be feasible since it utilizes the unused area next to the power plant, exploits the high average wind speed, and provides a notable boost in MW rating of the existing thermal power plant.