Israel’s Public Utility Authority (PUA) intends to meet Israel’s goals of generating 10% of power from renewables by 2020. Following a two-year freeze on new solar projects, PUA will issue more than 1,000MW of fresh quotas via at least six bid rounds for low, high, and extra-high voltage projects, reported JP Updates.
The solar developers will compete for rates based on their own proposals rather than signing up for predetermined feed-in-tariff (FiT) rate. The authority stated that low and high voltage facilities will be completed within 18 months, and extra-high voltage within 36 months, according to The Jerusalem Post.
Facilities will be built without obtaining conditional licenses and without determining binding milestones prior to the commercial operation of the project. However, bidders are required to provide a guarantee of /KW in the proposal stage and /KW in the winning stage, accompanied by a feasibility study on network connection for extra-high voltage projects.
The bidding process will take place over a one-year period with the first phase expected to be in January 2017,
The Israeli National Infrastructure, Energy and Water Minister, Yuval Steinitz, said that the new quotas will pave the way toward promoting transparency and efficiency while minimizing the cost of electricity to the public.
