20 June 2013 – Libya’s electricity minister Ali Muhirig says that there needs to be increased public awareness with regards to the responsible use of energy. He says that with the onset of high temperatures in the middle of summer he expects demand for energy to rise. He also says, as reported by the Libya Herald that whatever oil or gas is wasted by the country wasted through uneconomical or inefficient use of energy locally, it fails to export and loses possible revenues to invest in other sectors.

In this regard, Muhairig announced that his ministry is launching an awareness campaign to encourage people to use energy prudently. The country’s authorities attempted a similar measure in 2012 by installing a real-time live consumption dial on television screens. The idea was that when the public saw that the dial was in the red, they would turn something off, rather than lose electricity completely.

Ultimately, as long as electricity is heavily subsidised and cheap, it will be much more difficult to get the public to use electricity more sensibly. An adjustment of electricity tariffs would probably be the best disincentive for the wasteful consumption of electricity.

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