“The aim for supplying those areas with electricity is to support the civilians and the craftsmen who work in the industrial zone. Most of those people rely on diesel generators and suffer from the burden of high costs of fuel,” said the local project engineer for the Raqqa Governorate.

Two years after war-ravaged Raqqa’s liberation from ISIS, the lights are coming back on in one of Syria’s largest cities.

Local Syrian engineers restored power recently to over 200,000 people in Raqqa, with support from the U.S. Agency for International Development. 

“The aim for supplying those areas with electricity is to support the civilians and the craftsmen who work in the industrial zone. Most of those people rely on diesel generators and suffer from the burden of high costs of fuel,” said the local project engineer for the Raqqa Governorate. 

Hundreds of people gathered in Raqqa on April 23 to celebrate the restoration of electricity across residential neighborhoods of eastern Raqqa City in northeast Syria. Raqqa City was devastated by the brutal fighting in 2017 during the campaign to liberate it from ISIS. The conflict led to widespread destruction of electrical infrastructure. 

Electrical service was out for more than two years and repair of the electrical grid was funded by USAID’s Syria Essential Services program and completed in cooperation with the Raqqa Civil Council’s Energy Committee.

USAID and the Energy Committee began rehabilitating the electrical grid in eastern Raqqa City in December 2018. 

As a result of these activities, multiple neighborhoods are now connected to renewable, hydroelectric energy, and over 212,000 people have access to more reliable and affordable power in their homes and businesses, reducing reliance on expensive diesel generators. The city’s industrial zone is now connected to reliable electricity as well, which will pay economic dividends into the future. 

“We seek to support the city council by supporting the industrial sector,” the project engineer explained. “In the long run, tax collection from the industrial zone could help speed up the process of maintenance and investment by the Energy Committee.” 

Project engineers supported by USAID worked with local technicians to repair the grid and put Raqqa on a path to more lasting stability.