Electricity generation, which reached about 45 terawatt-hours in 2010, tumbled to under 20TWh by 2015 and did not recover. Now, the new post-Assad government is hurrying to restore gas supplies and repair dams and power stations, but this is a lengthy job. Solar power is crucial to filling the gap. It could do even more.

The change is remarkable. The Abu Dhabi-based International Renewable Energy Agency began reporting Syria’s off-grid solar capacity in 2022, standing at 249 megawatts. It reached 931MW in 2023, 1,500MW in 2024, and 2,060MW last year. Renewable power by then made up a third of national generating capacity, outstripped in the region only by Lebanon and Jordan. A quarter of Syrian households have some kind of solar power. In war-battered Aleppo, too, panels are everywhere.