'Electricity Authority killing solar energy industry'
Roni Biram, CEO of solar energy producer Sunflower criticizes government body's decision to reduce tariffs for small solar plants by 10%-20%; give ground-mounted plants special benefits
"The Electricity Authority's decision is killing the solar energy industry," Roni Biram joint owner of solar power producer Sunflower, said.
The Electricity Authority, which regulates power production in Israel, announced Tuesday that it was cutting electricity tariffs for small solar plants (of up to 50 kWh) by 10%-15%, just three months after dramatically cutting solar power tariffs for mid-size plants (of up to 12 MW) by 22%.
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Biram warned that the decision would also be detrimental to small enterprise instillations, adding that
"This pricing policy is decimating the system's costs and it's closing the lid on the industry", he said.
The Electricity Authority announced that the government would allocate a 50 MW production quota, of which 15 MW will be for household consumption and the rest for small businesses.
However, despite the quota increase for entrepreneurs, the tariff that was set is lower than that promised in a hearing for producers, held in November.
"I don't understand this move. The interest is to install as many systems as possible. It's better to have a half megawatt on every rooftop than one power plant in Hedera, which might become a strategic target for attack. Our activity in Israel doesn’t make up a considerable share of our portfolio and in the worst case scenario, we'll move all of our operations overseas", Biram said.
The Electricity Authority justified the tariff cuts by citing the high construction costs of solar power plants, and claims that the cut aims to prevent entrepreneurs from benefits at the expense of the consumers.
The Authority further claimed that under the current situation the public was in fact subsidizing entrepreneurs, since the tariff the latter receive is three times higher than what the public pays the IEC. Furthermore, the obligation to acquire power from entrepreneurs for a 20-year term is a burden for the IEC, argues the Electricity Authority.
This report was originally published by Calcalist
