In many parts of the world, electricity generators provide power wherever the official grid does not reach, and where the state does not, will not or cannot, provide connectivity. During the Lebanese civil war of 1975-1990, small generators became ubiquitous on balconies all over cities like Beirut and its suburbs as war disconnected neighborhoods – and infrastructures and services- from each other. Eventually, larger generators began to appear in Lebanon, and savvy operators with the right connections started to sell subscriptions to people wanting to plug in to these ishtirak systems to keep the lights on. Nearly three decades after the end of the civil war, electricity infrastructures in Lebanon remain a patchwork, and ishtirak systems are an important source of power, not just electricity. This paper traces the emergence and endurance of electricity generator subscription services in Lebanon, and the rise of municipal-scale attempts to manage these services. Rather than imagining how these systems exist in opposition to the state, as a kind of “shadow” network, what are the ways in which these patchwork systems – infrastructural failure, rather than success or even distribution – actually sustain the state? How might we regard ishtirak as a symptom of diminishing modernist imaginaries of large state projects rather than merely the continued “failures” of infrastructure brought about by conflict-era destruction? What happens when we regard ishtirak as part of what sustains the state in its current arrangement, rather than something operating illicitly outside of it?