Yuval Steinitz, Energy Minister of Israel, announces a plan to increase the use of solar energy over the next decade
Israel is preparing its energy future, that is accompanied to a important increase of energy demand due to a expected growing population. This energy future plan will be based in renewable energies, and in solar energy specifically. Israel’s Energy Ministry unveiled an 80 billion shekel ($22.8 billion) plan to increase the use of solar power over the next decade. Nowadays the contribution of solar power to the energy mix of the country it´s only a 5% of its electricity. About 64% came from natural gas and the rest from coal
As Yuval Steinitz declared, Israel wants to grow that sun power contribution to 30% by 2030 (initially the first goal was 17%), something that involves 16,000 megawatts. Solar installations will be built to produce the equivalent of all the electricity produced today. Furthermore, at peak hours, more than 80% of Israel’s electricity would be generated by the sun, according to the plan. Meanwhile, the Government of Israel has also announced that coal will be completely removed of the electricity generation methods of the country by 2026.
The main investment of the energy road map wil go into solar energy facilities that will be built by the private sector. In addition, Israel has to prepare its national grid for receiving energy from renewable sources and investing in energy storage.
One of the visible results of this plan will be reducing air pollution by 93% in comparison with 2015, and greenhouse gases by 50% per capita.
