Energy: So why isn't Israel enjoying the sun?

As fires, floods, hurricanes and other natural disasters put the consequences of climate change at the top of the international agenda, many developed countries are finding new urgency in the absolute need to reach the zero emissions target for greenhouse gases by 2050 – which will mean substantially reducing the use of fossil fuels.

For 2050, Israel, for its part, has set itself a more modest goal – an 85% reduction in total emissions from 2015 levels. This will include an 85% reduction in emissions from production. electricity even if the country has not yet determined exactly what the proportion of electricity obtained in this context will be through renewable energies – mainly from the sun.

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The country has failed to meet the target set by the Ministry of Energy to produce 10% of electricity from renewable energies by 2020, settling for 6%. And even if the country has a large expanse of desert, abundant sunshine, privileged access to new technologies that can generate and store energy efficiently, it is doubtful that the objective of 30% of electricity produced from renewable energies is really realistic.

The Ministry of Energy has unreservedly embraced the option of natural gas from the vast deposits located off the coast. Karine Elharrar, who became Minister of Energy in June, announced that she would oversee a change of direction towards renewable energies, which she considers an essential priority.

But there are still a number of hurdles to overcome to bring about the solar revolution in Israel. In particular, it will be necessary to find space for all the panels that will be necessary to supply electricity, to modernize the electrical infrastructures that have become obsolete and insufficient while finding a solution for organizational problems.

La députée Karine Elharrar. (Crédit : Yesh Atid, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)

One in eight Israelis who want to install solar panels on the roofs of homes are told that there is no place on the grid to support the exchange. Some are beginning to talk about a radical transformation in the way the grid has been built in the country, advocating a decentralized model that they believe will be able to harness diffused solar power more efficiently.

Bringing together all the necessary elements requires coordination between a staggering range of ministries, state agencies, private actors and others. But the body responsible for determining what it will take to achieve the targets set did not begin its work until December.

Put on the gas

Yuval Steinitz, who was Minister of Energy from 2015 to last June, will be remembered as an inveterate defender of gas.

Le ministre israélien de l’Énergie Yuval Steinitz lors d’une discussion sur un projet de loi visant à dissoudre le parlement, à la Knesset, à Jérusalem, le 29 mai 2019. (Crédit: Hadas Parush/Flash90)

It was he who refused to set a target for generating electricity through renewable energies by 2050, saying that there was not enough knowledge about how this technology would develop.

Even as many countries distanced themselves from fossil fuels, Steinitz's Department of Energy continued to grant permits for gas and oil exploration - despite pledging to eliminate all use of fossil fuels. even dirtier coal by 2025 (Elharrar, his successor, announced in August that oil exploration would cease but offshore prospecting and drilling would continue.)

Steinitz has given the go-ahead to plans to build new gas-fired power plants to meet national consumer needs.

He has also overseen gas supply deals with Jordan and Egypt, also looking to send it to more distant Europe, and co-founded the EMGF (Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum ) with Greece, Cyprus and others.

A United Nations report, released in May, said expanding infrastructure and natural gas use was "inconsistent with keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius [the target for the UN that was established in the Paris climate agreement]”

La centrale électrique Orot Rabin depuis le parc Nahal Hadera à Hadera, en Israël, le 25 novembre 2017. (Crédit : Gili Yaari/Flash90)

With so many eggs in the natural gas basket, Steinitz's Department of Energy has been reluctant to commit to renewables in any radical way.

An emissions reduction roadmap that the ministry released in April spoke in general terms without setting intermediate milestones, and Steinitz spoke of the difficulty of reaching the 30% target – which he himself had revised upwards when he had previously committed to 17% of electricity production based on renewable energies by 2030.

One of his main arguments against solar energy has always been the lack of available space.

He notably declared during a press briefing at the beginning of the year that it would take nearly a hundred thousand hectares to supply the country with 90% to 100% of the electricity it needs from renewable energies. . This would double, he added, the built environment in Israel, roads included.

Des gazelles de montagne sur une colline à côté d’une forêt dans la banlieue de Jérusalem le 12 janvier 2021. (Crédit : MENAHEM KAHANA / AFP)

The Director-General of the Ministry of Energy, Udi Adiri, who is expected to be replaced by Elharrar, said at the same time that solar energy required 150 times the land area required for the development of natural gas and he strongly recommended to those present to also take into account the preservation of landscapes and biodiversity as environmental factors.

He told the Knesset Environment Committee in early October that would require less than 18,000 hectares to be made available. A ministry spokesperson later made it clear that of the total area, 8,000 hectares could come from potential dual-use sites.

There are rooftops and the like that are already in use – ranging from agricultural or industrial buildings to highway junctions, even cemeteries.

Le directeur-général du ministère de l’Énergie Udi Adiri (Capture d’écran : YouTube)

The Israel Electricity Authority, which regulates the energy industry, estimates that at least 4,000 hectares of uncovered land will be needed to meet the 30% target, even though the National Planning Council has limited the amount of land available for solar panels to half of this area.

In contrast, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the ENZ (net zero) project at the Heschel Center for Sustainable Development, an environmental policy office in Tel Aviv, have produced models indicating that the Jewish state could reach 95% renewable energy by 2050 through the dual-use approach.

The Environmental Protection Ministry even estimated that there was enough space for solar panels on rooftops and at dual-use sites to meet 46% of Israel's electricity needs.

La vue de la centrale électrique d’Ashalim dans le désert du Negev, dans le sud d’Israël, le 21 août 2020. (Crédit : Yonatan Sindel/FLASH90)

100% solar?

Ofer Yannay founded and runs the company Nofar Energy, which specializes in solar energy. Among the innovations of his firm, solar panels floating in a basin, thus exploiting underused surfaces to produce electricity.

According to Yannay, Israel could get 100% of its electricity from the sun by 2035 without putting a single panel on virgin land.

Ofer Yannay, fondateur et dirigeant de Nofar Energy. (Crédit : Reuven Kopichinsky)

“We must set ourselves the goal of installing panels on all surfaces that will be able to generate energy, the roofs of cars, the surfaces of roads, the facade of buildings – there is technology for all this,” exclaims Yannay who tried in vain to obtain a permit for his floating solar installations, an aftertaste of the bureaucracy which, according to experts, is also responsible for the lack of expansion of solar projects.

Tasked with delivering a national plan that would help manage dual-use solar power sites, Department of Energy planning chief Dorit Hochner sought to expand both the locations where the panels could be installed and the regulations currently in place.

Called Tama 10D 10/2, the new national plan for the installation of photovoltaic panels on dual-use sites focuses on the installation of panels at traffic intersections, on acoustic barriers, on retaining walls, in landfills, in greenhouses, in outdoor car parks, in cemeteries and in public buildings, such as those of the telephone or water companies.

Hochner's department is now working on a guidance document that would add military bases, fences, building facades, and agrivoltaics—which combines power generation and crop-beneficial shade—to the list, and he's also looking at a plan for solar energy storage.

Hochner also managed to get a number of travelers on the train of the Economic Arrangements Bill currently moving through the Knesset that would support the idea of ​​solar panels being installed on dual-use sites in areas outside his scope of supervision, which means that other departments will also have to get involved.

One proposal recommends planning the installation of solar panels beyond military firing range and even in cleared minefields, areas that are normally controlled by the prime minister's office and the defense ministry.

Photo d’illustration : Un champ de mine israélien. (Crédit : Yossi Zamir/Flash90)

Another clause will exempt companies specializing in solar panels from capital appreciation on car parks and other dual-use sites, bypassing the Interior Ministry which currently only exempts rooftops.

Hochner also offered the Israel Lands Authority the task of setting the price for the land where the solar installations would be installed rather than having to negotiate with potential developers on each project, adding uncertainty to the process. And she also wants the Planning Commission to reconsider its limitation to 200 hectares of land for solar projects.

But several people involved tell The Times of Israel that finding space for solar panels is just one of the hurdles for all advocates of switching to solar power.

Inappropriate infrastructure

Another key obstacle is the electricity network, which is unable to support the change to decentralized solar energy despite repeated requests over the years to expand and modernize it.

Les premiers panneaux solaires placés sur un réservoir par Nofar Energy dans la vallée du Jourdain. (Capture d’écran :YouTube)

Grid limitations mean the Israel Electric Corporation rejected 13% of all private solar installations that needed to be plugged in, a company spokesperson said.

Residents of Galilee and the Golan Heights in the north of the country and Eilat in the south, for example, have been told they will not be able to add solar panels to the system until 2023.

Image illustrant un employé de Israël Electricity Corporation soulevé par une grue au niveau d’un poteau de services publics pour effectuer des travaux de maintenance le 10 juin 2013. (Flash 90)

In a recent policy paper, the Electricity Authority noted that meeting the 30% renewable energy target would require the construction of six new distribution facilities (which convert 400,000 volts extra high voltage to average voltage of 160,000 volts), almost a hundred substations (which convert 160,000 volt lines to an even lower voltage) and 1,600 kilometers of transmission cables – enough to criss-cross the country between three and four times.

The document also noted that it could take a decade to complete a new substation due to the time required to complete planning and obtain permits. Building a high voltage line can also take ten years due to the need to acquire land, plan the project, have the proper permits to do so and build it.

He also mentions other difficulties, including competition for land purchases and public opposition to pylons and power lines near homes or in scenic landscapes.

Some experts believe that storing solar energy produced when the sun is shining, and feeding it into the grid only during off-peak hours using underutilized lines, could be an alternative to network expansion.

Today, according to the Energy Ministry, Israel only has 300 megawatts of storage, and that is pumped storage, which uses water pressure, not batteries. The Electricity Authority estimates that by 2030 it will need to be able to store around 3 gigawatts, or 10 times the current capacity.

Une centrale électrique d’Israël Electric Corporation située sur la côte méditerranéenne à Hadera, Israël (Crédit : Yossi Zamir / Flash90)

According to Yannay, if Israel manages to increase its storage capacity by more than 13,000%, to reach 40 gigawatts, and to implement certain efficiency measures on the network, the 2030 target can be reached without any physical expansion. infrastructures.

“The grid must be managed in such a way that other producers can use it when the large power plants are not operating,” he said. “Better management would allow the network to accommodate three times more energy already today. »

The UK, one of the world's top three markets for storage deployment over the next few years, according to a market research firm, is expected to install 298 megawatts of storage this year and 2.9 gigawatts, or 2,900 megawatts next year. Spain has set a target of 20 gigawatts for the deployment of energy storage by 2030.

Yannay believes that solar-generating households that have the ability to access their own cheaper electricity at night will foot the bill.

“Without storage, renewable electricity is cheap during the day and expensive at night. With storage, people can supply their own electricity for less overnight and get paid for the excess they sell to the grid,” he said.

Predicting that there will be one million electric vehicles on the roads by 2026, he added that all buildings will also need storage to charge vehicles at night.

The demand already exists. Yannay's Nofar Energy company installed the country's first solar battery installation, with a capacity of 3.22 megawatts, in February at Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak in the Negev.

The company has struck a $30 million deal with Tesla for batteries to store 100 megawatts of electricity in 35 kibbutzim and several shopping malls — the first near the Bilu Junction in central Israel, by the end of next year. Yannay also acquired batteries worth 20 megawatts from another producer for five other kibbutzim.

Les premières batteries de stockage d’énergie solaire de Nofar Energy au kibboutz Nir Yitzhak dans le sud d’Israël. (Crédit : Nofar Energy)

Eilat and the Arava region are already 100% solar powered during the day and will soon have enough storage to be energy independent at night as well.

“We have shown that storage today is half the cost of grid extension,” said Dorit Davidovich-Banet, CEO of the Eilat-Eilot Renewable Energy Initiative. "And the prices keep going down."

Indeed, in December, a tender for solar power, including storage, closed at 17.45 agorot (5.36 cents) per kilowatt hour, which, according to the business daily The Marker, was 31% cheaper than natural gas at the time.

But in its guidance document, the IEA did not factor storage into its calculations, saying battery storage technology was still in its infancy.

In an interview with The Times of Israel, Hochner expressed a similar view.

She said, however, that her staff were researching storage and hoped to start work on a national storage master plan by the end of the year.

According to Major General (Reserve) Shlomo Turgeman, who heads a new state-owned company to manage the electricity industry, changes will be proposed to make the grid more efficient. But he dismissed Yannay's claim that the 30% target could be achieved without the network also being expanded.

Too many cooks… spoil the sauce?

Turgeman's company, Noga - Independent System Operator Ltd, was created as part of a structural reform of the inefficient electricity sector introduced in 2018.

The new management company – tasked with producing a detailed plan to achieve the 2030 target – only started work in December. It will not officially take over day-to-day management of the Israel Electric Corporation network until November.

Sami Turgeman, président du nouveau gestionnaire de réseau indépendant du secteur de l’électricité. (Capture d’écran YouTube)

Asked about everyone's responsibilities to ensure the 30% target is met, Turgeman said it was "the most important question", with the division of responsibilities not always clear.

The Department of Energy determines the goals and takes overall responsibility for achieving them, Turgeman said.

The Electricity Authority, under the Ministry, is responsible for regulation and financial incentives, which the Ministry of Finance must finance.

The management company he heads is in charge of infrastructure planning. She is working intensively on the development of a detailed and integrated program which will be presented by the end of the year. This program will provide data on the amount of renewable energy that can be generated, the scale of grid expansion and the amount of storage needed.

Once the management company completes its plans, the Israel Electric Company will be responsible for implementing them.

If we add to this the Ministry of the Interior (responsible for local authorities), the Ministry of Agriculture, the National Council for Infrastructure Planning (known by its Hebrew acronym, Vattal), the Israel Lands Authority and environmental organizations that watch all developments with an eagle eye, such as the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, the complexities of advancement begin to emerge more clearly.

There is progress, and the overall coordination of the Ministry of Energy is working better under the leadership of the new Minister Elharrar, according to people very involved, but the pace is still painfully slow.

A vision for the future

The 2018 electricity reform guarantees the connection of all energy installations, including storage, to the national grid, on the grounds that no one can be left without help.

Dorit Davidovich-Banet (Autorisation)

But some, like Davidovich-Banet, would like the management of the electricity grid to be decentralized, allowing local communities to manage their own renewable energy demand and supply.

Others are also pushing for a so-called “smart” grid system.

"Wouldn't it make more sense that if I have excess electricity and my neighbor needs it, I supply it directly to them?" said Yosef Abramowitz, who established the country's first solar field at Kibbutz Ketura in the Arava Desert a decade ago.

"I should be able to store my own energy in a battery at home, but there are no regulations on this and right now it's not economical," he said.

For Abramowitz, a decentralized system would be safer against external threats. In recent years, Israel has made protecting its electricity infrastructure against foreign cyberattacks, including those from Iran, a top priority. But a decentralized system would be almost impossible to dismantle.

Vue aérienne d’un champ d’énergie photovoltaïque de 40 mégawatts récemment construit au Kibbutz Ketura, et qui fournit un tiers de la consommation quotidienne d’électricité de la ville d’Eilat. (Autorisation)

"If everyone had panels and batteries, then we would still have power when the Iranians tried to cut our grid," he said. “You would think that a security-conscious country like ours would have been aware of this issue years ago, but the finance and energy ministries, who know about this option, have done nothing to this subject. »

“They [energy and finance ministries] may think natural gas is good for our economy, but [gas] electricity is three times more expensive [than solar], and that's not to mention the savings on environmental and health costs, and the potential of solar energy to provide more jobs, especially in the periphery of the country,” he said. “There are also the costs incurred in defending marine gas fields. »

“It is the opposite of an economically sound energy policy. »