This article by IUED’s former Executive Director, Philip Warburg,

appeared in The Jerusalem Report in 2002.

This past summer, Israel’s energy gluttony reached a new high – or low, depending how you look at it. As Knesset debate heated up on a proposal to cut the virtually limitless free electricity now given to some 13,500 workers and ex-workers of the state-run Israel Electric Corporation, the bill’s prime sponsor received anonymous death threats on his cell phone.

If enacted, the bill will limit workers’ free electricity to twice the national household average – hardly a punitive measure. But to those long accustomed to an all-you-can-eat energy diet, the law has offered just cause for angry opposition. Workers’ union representatives have lobbied vigorously against its passage, but the Knesset plenum nevertheless has referred the bill to committee for further consideration.

The electric workes’ resistance to the bill provides an apt metaphor for much wider official and corporate reluctance to curb Israel’s energy appetite. Yet energy is one field where Israel could shine internationally.

The problem begins with the low cost of electricity in Israel. For residential customers, the real price has dropped by 20 percent since 1992, making electricity cheaper in Israel than in Germany, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Britain, Ireland, South Korea, and elsewhere. Partly because it’s so cheap, Israelis have had little incentive to conserve. To the contrary, power consumption has grown by 7.5 percent per year since 1990, a rate far surpassing that of any other nation in the developed world. 

Israel’s population has expanded by 2.5 percent per year, on average, over the past decade. This means that electricity has outstripped population growth by a factor of three. Particularly problematic for Israel’s environment and national security is the source of this electricity: imported fossil fuel. Coal now generates more than 70 percent of Israel’s power; the rest is supplied by plants operating on heavy fuel oil and, increasingly, diesel fuel. Besides polluting Israel’s air, these plants deepen dependence on often unreliable foreign sources of energy.

There’s also a global dimension. At a time when world leaders are arguing about the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Israel has more than doubled its contribution to global warming since 1990. The increase cannot be explaned by Israel’s having started at a relatively low level of energy consumption. Even in 1990, Israel was no slouch when it came to energy use. By 1995, it had already surpassed Austria, France, Switzerland and Sweden in per capita production of carbon dioxide, the leading contributor to global warming and the direct result of fuel combustion. Since then, the gap has only widened.

What can be done to reduce global warming while offering Israelis a healthier energy mix that is less vulnerable to political instabilities?

In addition to giving long-overdue priority to energy conservation, we would do well to tap one of the few resources that Israel enjoys in abundance: the sun. 

Once upon a time, Israel could proudly present itself as a “light unto nations” in solar technology. Since the 1950s, no visitor could fail to notice the solar water heaters etched against Israel’s urban skyline. Nationwide regulations mandate the use of these simple devices on most residential buildings, easing Israel’s dependence on imported fossil fuels by an estimated 3 percent. 

Israeli solar innovation also reached well beyond domestic water heaters. For many years, research projects flourished at the Weizmann Institute and Ben Gurion University. In the late 1980s, Israeli technology was employed when the world’s largest solar power plant was built in California.

And yet, within Israel there has been no commercial production of electricity from solar energy. European Union nations have committed themseles to meeting at least 15 percent of their energy needs through renewable resources by 2010. If Israel adopted this goal, we just might succeed in moving Israeli solar technology out of half-forgotten university labs and into commercial use. Beyond boosting Israel’s lagging economy, this move would yield a welcome degree of energy independence – no small benefit to a nation all-too-vulnerable to the vagaries of Middle East politics.

To bring solar energy on-line, the government will need to provide real investment incentives to solar power producers. In charting this course, Israel can find useful precedents in the tax credits, low-interest loans and other financial incentives that have been offered over many years to renewable energy producers in the U.S. and Europe. 

Israelis should also be encouraged to tap the sun on a household scale. If Germany, with its colder, cloudier weather, can find reason to install photovoltaic arrays through its “100,000 Rooftops” program, then certainly Israelis can use the same technology to even greater gain. To avoid the high capital costs of storing power on-site, the government should allow householders to sell excess electricity generated during hot daylight hours back to the grid. “Net metering,” as it’s called, has proven itself abroad as a highly effective catalyst to small-scale power production.

There aren’t many areas these days where Israel can shine in the eyes of the international community. Leading the way to a solar future is too good an opportunity to miss.