Israel’s solar-plus-storage tender concludes with final price of $0.0578/kWh

The Israeli Electricity Market Regulatory Authority has revealed the final results for a solar-plus-storage tender.
The regulator assigned 168 MW of capacity across 11 projects submitted by three developers. Israeli Doral Energy and Enlight Renewable Energy secured 100 MW and 48 MW capacity allotments, respectively. New York-based Alumni Capital secured 20 MW.
The projects will sell power at a final price of ILS19.90/kWh ($0.0578) and will have to begin delivering power to the Israeli grid in 2022. The regulator had pre-qualified 15 bidders with proposale for 45 projects with a total 465 MW of capacity.
“The storage auction results proves that local industry is mature and prices can combat natural gas peakers, igniting a public debate regarding the local energy mix,” Eitan Parnass, director of Israel’s Green Energy Association, told pv magazine. “Israel was champion of harvesting solar energy, with water solar heaters made compulsory since the 1980s. Now it seems that Israel takes brave steps to promote solar energy.”
The regulator announced it would hold another, similar tender this year.
In June, energy minister Yuval Steinitz said the country would raise its 2030 renewable energy target to 30% of the national power mix, with solar expected to account for the lion’s share. Israel had around 1.19 GW of solar capacity at the end of December, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency, with developers having installed around 120 MW last year.
The nation supports PV through tenders for large scale projects and operates an incentive scheme for rooftop PV, offering net-metering and feed-in tariffs.