Author: bomuo

Purpose of the law is to regulate activities in the electricity sector for the benefit of the public while ensuring reliability, availability, quality and efficiency and facilitation competition and reducing costs

The electricity authority has stated that a 17% electricity reserves would represent a reliable level of reserves for the country. However, during peak summer days, Israel is due to have only 3.1% in 2009, 8% in 2010 and 7.1% of reserves in 2011 and 2012. If the Alon Tavor CCGT is established (250 MW by 2011 and an additional 125 MW by 2013) the reserves will increase to 9.2% in 2011 and 9.1% in 2012. If IPPs are established gradually at the planned rate of 2,000 MW and if the 4 CCGTs are established the reserves will reach 13.7% in 2013. The 4th CCGT (Alon Tavor) improves the reserve situation in 2011 from 7.1% to 9.2% and in 2012 to 9.1%, which is still extremely low from the amount required to achieve a reliable and efficient electricity system. If the 4 CCGTs and the 2,000 MW of IPPs are established in 2012 reserves will reach 11.1% and 16.3% in 2013. IEC concluded that in any point in time that the amount of surplus electricity reserves required was the level of the two largest generation units available in the system in order to ensure that the generation system could continue unimpeded in case of a malfunction in one of the large generation units. Thus the minimum surplus required at any time must be 1,100 megawatts. A surplus of only 600 megawatts (one large generation unit) as was the case when a malfunction occurred in June 2006, is defined as “status red”, namely high risk that must not occur. Based on the data available during peak consumption hours, it appears that this minimum required condition does not exist in Israel and may not exist even after implementation of the development program until 2011. In Israel in 2007 the surplus rate of electricity stood at only 5.3% during peak consumption times, significantly lower than the rate advised by international consultants

The gap between the available generation capacity and the electricity consumption at any moment in time represents the level of electricity reserves available to the utility

The purpose of these regulations is to encourage the erection and operation of private electricity production facilities, according to the principles of minimizing the costs of production for the economy and encouraging the sale of electricity by private producers to consumers