What Lebanon’s Solar Boom Teaches Us About Grid Resilience

In this episode of the T&D World Live Podcast, with speak with Vladimir Abdelnour, an energy researcher at Arizona State University’s Laboratory of Energy and Power Solutions (LEAPS), about how crisis-driven resilience in Lebanon shaped his perspective on grid modernization, decentralization, and AI-enabled energy systems.

Abdelnour begins by describing Lebanon’s electricity crisis, where prolonged blackouts — sometimes exceeding 12 hours per day — led to the widespread rise of neighborhood diesel generators operated by what he calls “street entrepreneurs.” When fuel subsidies were removed in 2022 and electricity prices tripled, the country experienced what he describes as a “hypermarket of solar.” Within just 16 months, Lebanon installed rooftop solar equivalent to 30% of its national electricity demand across residential, commercial, and industrial sectors — without a centralized policy push. Instead, individuals and businesses drove the transformation.

He explains how early adopters used personal savings to install rooftop solar systems and disconnect from both the national grid and diesel mini-grids. Commercial and industrial customers later embraced solar-diesel hybrid systems to reduce fuel consumption before eventually investing in battery storage. Financing models evolved organically, including performance-based repayment structures tied to energy savings.

Operating in dense urban environments such as Beirut presented additional complexities, including shared rooftops and multi-tenant buildings. Abdelnour and his team implemented integrated solar systems paired with smart meters and energy management platforms to allocate savings transparently among users.

These experiences led Abdelnour to found Tacatcom, a company initially focused on blockchain-based peer-to-peer energy trading. After discovering that customers prioritized reliability and affordability over blockchain innovation — and that municipalities lacked jurisdiction and funding — he pivoted toward building energy management systems for private mini-grid operators. The platform addressed energy theft detection, automated billing, and dynamic time-of-use tariffs, enabling diesel generator operators to optimize load, absorb excess solar generation, and modernize customer interactions.

Now pursuing his Ph.D. at ASU, Abdelnour applies these lessons to U.S. grid challenges. He outlines mounting pressures on the American power system, including projected annual load growth of 290 terawatt-hours driven by EV adoption and AI data centers. At the same time, more than half of U.S. distribution transformers are older than their intended design life, and replacement lead times have stretched to two to three years with significantly higher costs.

His recent research examines how uneven EV adoption across counties can strain specific substations. Using quantified socioeconomic factors, his modeling identifies which substations are likely to experience the greatest stress and should be prioritized for upgrades.

Looking ahead, Abdelnour describes an AI-driven microgrid design platform under development at LEAPS. The tool aims to reduce design timelines from months to significantly shorter cycles by using AI agents to generate fully verifiable engineering documents for mini-grids anywhere in the world. With an estimated 210,000 mini-grids needed globally to achieve universal electrification — and only 19,000 currently deployed — he sees AI-enabled design as a key accelerator.

Throughout the conversation, a central theme emerges: when institutions falter, individuals innovate. From Lebanon’s decentralized energy transformation to AI-enabled planning for the U.S. grid, Abdelnour’s work highlights how crisis, technology, and entrepreneurship intersect to reshape the future of power delivery.