The Israeli vision

The Israeli vision of Solar Systems

 It has been a year state since the regulations of electricity authority passed, regulations that enable companies and individuals to establish their own Photovoltaic Solar System to create Grid-Power and sale it to the electric company in a competitive price.
The first anniversary of the regulations is a great opportunity to review the progress.   

Success is limited although 50 megawatts were allocated by authority to produce electricity from privet Solar Systems companies only 1.5 megawatts were produced.
 Actually the situation is more optimistic, considering beginnings are always have greater obstacles there is a feeling the cork is out of the bottle, the beat of installations have increased and it’s expected to double up in the following year and hopefully be even greater.

Not only the quantity of the installations needs to be tested, the locations of which the installations were preformed needs carful examination.
Ways before the regulations have passed there was a considerable concern in the abillty of Homeowners with small businesses to install these systems and to preduce eco friendly energy and make it profitable.
Many discussed the educational elements; families will profit from selling electricity and along the way will absorb some “Green” awareness. In fact the privet sector almost remained outside of the picture out of 30% projected installations, only 1.5% was acutely installed private houses with small businesses.

There are many reasons to this effect and the main one isn’t economical, the extent of installations allowed and the fact that private homeowners do not benefit from VAT (Sale’s Tax) exemptions, made it less lucrative to private homeowners. This doesn’t substantially effect the overall production of electricity, however quite essential to the “Green” awareness component which that was integrated in to the regulations and had an effective roll passing it.

Additional surprise was the Agricultural Sector which was the very open to the technology. While the Industrial and the commercial sectors hesitated, Farmer Villages the kibbutzim eagerly adopted Solar Energy; almost 90% from the Solar Panel were installed in the agricultural sector, on barns, chicken coops, agricultural buildings and others. The Government should highly consider acting to incentivize this Sector by increasing the quantity of System per owner to this Sector can install, ease the Land use regulations for Renewable Energy Usages and many more, to allow the agricultural sector to develop even more in this field.

A year after and we are still very far from the Israeli Vision of having a solar panel on every other roof in the country and not as close to the Israeli Kyoto protocol were Israel needs to achieve 20% of its energy production from renewable Energy by 2020. With that in mind there has been substantial progress in the field for the last year today Israel knows it can achieve its goals, we see the business projections work, the profitability from renewable Energy and confident we can become a leading force in the Solar Energy filed as part and the renewable energy.

Most of the villages in Germany have Solar Panels o their roofs, Japan achieved the 20% goal of energy produced from Renewable Energy, and Israel has come closer to that goal in the last year once we realize we can make the dream a reality.

This vision will not only promote Israel to be a leader in the renewable energy filed but will make the Small Villages and the outskirts of cities to be a leading the Solar and Renewable Energy Industry in Israel. These areas are the centre of success in this filed, promise comes from these areas, The North and The South of the country. This will get Israel closer to its goals in this filled and will substantial benefit these areas by creating more Jobs and attracting Research and Developments to these areas for Renewable Energy.

Obstacles are ahead of us at this anniversary but the future looks promising for Israel to become a leader in Renewable Energy Field.

Writer is the CEO of Solarit Doral – among the leaders of Solar Panels industry.