Electricity Authority (Israel)

The Electricity Authority is Israel's statutory electricity-sector regulator. It sets tariffs and standards, issues licenses, supervises essential service providers, promotes competition and renewable energy, and oversees electricity-grid development. Its remit covers production, transmission, distribution, and supply, while its statutory purpose emphasizes public benefit, reliability, availability, quality, efficiency, efficient energy use, and cost minimization.[1][2]

The Electricity Authority was created when the Economic Policy Implementation Law for the 2015 and 2016 fiscal years abolished its predecessor, the Public Services Authority–Electricity, and transferred the Electricity Administration to the newly constituted body, concentrating regulatory authority over the electricity sector under one institutional roof.[1] The sector's legal framework includes the Electricity Law, 5714-1954, and the Electricity Sector Law, 5756-1996.[1]

The Authority is formally situated within the ministry responsible for energy, and its statutory mandate, as set out in sections 21–21a of the Electricity Sector Law, is to implement ministerial and government policy, supervise compliance with the law and issued licenses, assist the minister in forming policy, publish its position on policy principles, and advise the government on electricity-market policy when requested by the minister.[3] The minister retains responsibility for determining broad policy principles, approving development plans subject to the finance minister's consent, setting licensing regulations, and approving licenses.[1]

The Authority's statutory purpose is to regulate electricity-sector activity for the public benefit while ensuring reliability, availability, quality, efficiency, and efficient energy use, and while creating conditions for competition and cost minimization.[2] Its stated objectives include building an efficient, reliable, and sustainable electricity sector; promoting clean electricity; designing a competitive market structure; increasing benefits to consumers; and improving the effectiveness and professionalism of its own operations.[2]

The Israel State Archives lists the Electricity Authority (רשות החשמל) as an institutional unit under section 7.26 of its archival-exposure priorities document, identifying relevant record types that include electricity plans, tariff files, public complaints, statistical data for electricity-market development, and data on grid connections.[4]

Executive authority within the Electricity Authority is exercised by its Plenum, which convenes every few weeks and publishes hearings and decisions concerning regulations, standards, tariffs, rules, and licenses; agendas and minutes are made publicly available.[1] The Plenum consists of five members: the Authority chairman, a representative of the Ministry of Energy, a representative of the Ministry of Finance, and two public representatives. An observer from the Ministry of Environmental Protection is invited to attend meetings.[1]

As of the 2024–2025 reporting period, Amir Shavit had served as chairman of the Electricity Authority and chairman of its Plenum since September 2022.[1] Other Plenum members identified in the same report include Ron Eifer as Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure representative from May 2025, Efrat Minuchin as public representative since October 2023, and Noam Cherlow Briga as Ministry of Finance representative since August 2025.[1]

A notable earlier chapter in the Authority's leadership came when Orit Farkash-Hacohen joined as legal adviser in 2003, a role she held until 2011.[5] She was appointed temporary chair in September 2011 and received the position permanently in March 2012, becoming the first woman to lead the Authority.[5] During her tenure she advocated opening Israel's energy-production market to competition and encouraged the development of a renewable-energy industry.[5] A Jewish Virtual Library profile attributes her 2015 departure to her public opposition to Israel's natural-gas monopoly and her calls on the prime minister to address the high price of gas.[5]

The Authority implements ministerial and government electricity policy, advises the energy minister on policy formulation, regulates the sector, determines tariffs and standards, issues licenses, and performs functions formerly carried out by the Electricity Administration under the Electricity Law, 5714-1954, and the Electricity Sector Law, 5756-1996.[1]

On the production and supply side, the Authority supervises essential service providers and determines their recognized costs and tariffs, sets rules and tariffs for private producers and suppliers, and promotes competition in both segments.[1] An earlier expert report described the Authority as determining the fuel mix by reference to the generating-station mix in the Israel Electric Corporation's development plan, as approved by the Ministry of National Infrastructure. The same report stated that the Authority applied a 2% efficiency coefficient to operating expenses, while capital-service costs were based on normative future costs for constructing power stations.[6]

On the transmission and distribution side, the Authority plans and supervises grid development, tracks implementation of the transmission plan, promotes the distribution plan, and publishes engineering rules concerning safety, reliability, and supply quality.[1] It also advances electricity storage, renewable-energy connections, consumer choice, public transparency, and data-based policymaking.[1]

The Authority is additionally identified as a state cyber-regulatory body that may supervise sectors according to their level of criticality, reflecting the critical-infrastructure status of the electricity system.[7]

Liberalizing Israel's electricity-supply market has been a defining focus of the Authority's recent work. Suppliers without their own production assets began supplying electricity in 2021, and by 2024 about 21 active virtual suppliers provided approximately 14% of the consumption served by private suppliers.[1] An official September 2024 report recorded 25,994 meters supplied by private suppliers at the end of 2023, including 23,520 low-voltage meters, and described a sharp expansion of competition in that segment.[2]

From September 2024, domestic consumers with basic, non-smart meters became eligible to switch to private suppliers.[1] By June 2025, more than 270,000 consumers—including approximately 250,000 domestic consumers—had made the switch.[1] Private suppliers accounted for approximately 35% of electricity consumption in 2024, while private producers generated approximately 60% of sector electricity in that year.[1]

The Authority's 2024 decisions also included issuing licensing terms for virtual suppliers without their own production facilities and recommending a 2024–2030 distribution-grid development plan focused on renewable-energy integration and reliability.[1] In October 2016, the Israel Public Utilities Authority announced a goal of having solar power supply 10% of Israel's electricity by 2020.[8]

The Authority's September 2024 Report on the State of the Electricity Sector described Israel's 2023 grid as comprising approximately 800 kilometers of ultra-high-voltage transmission lines, 5,000 kilometers of extra-high-voltage lines, 31,000 kilometers of high-voltage distribution lines, and 42,000 kilometers of low-voltage distribution lines, along with 12 switching stations, 212 substations, and approximately 55,000 transformer stations.[9]

A transmission-grid development plan approved in 2023 totaled approximately 22 billion NIS, of which approximately 12 billion NIS was designated for connecting renewable-energy facilities.[9] An Electricity Authority oversight report dated January 8, 2025—covering the third and fourth quarters of 2024—found that implementation of the plan was delayed.[10] A separate oversight report published in 2024 found that only one-third of the plan's projects were expected to be completed on schedule, attributing delays primarily to statutory-approval bottlenecks, opposition to transmission-line routing, and demands to place lines underground—including cases where undergrounding demands continued after approval to establish a line had been granted.[9]

Beyond transmission, the Authority has worked to accelerate photovoltaic and storage connections and extended project deadlines in 2024 because of delays related to the security situation.[1] It is also identified as a partner of the electricity system operator in proposed national microgrid pilots designed to examine technological and regulatory models for managing flexibility, storage, and electricity demand in real time, with particular attention to remote areas, community resilience centers, and independent local-grid operation during emergencies.[10]

Under Government Resolution 490 of May 7, 2023, the Authority is expected to publish standards enabling a local electricity grid to disconnect from the national grid, with the Israel Electric Corporation continuing to own and operate the grid while local production and storage assets supply the locality.[10] The Authority is also identified as the body responsible for setting standards and tariffs governing the interface between the Israel Electric Corporation and local energy-management systems in cities and moshavim.[10]

Public transparency is a stated organizational value of the Electricity Authority. It publishes tariff indexes, Plenum protocols, public-hearing materials, electricity-grid data, system marginal prices, next-day half-hour electricity-demand forecasts, and half-hour renewable-production forecasts.[3] The system marginal price is defined as the half-hour price of electricity generation in Israel based on supply and demand.[3]

The Authority issues annual reports on the state of the electricity sector. The September 2024 and September 2025 editions cited in this article provide figures on electricity-production sources, renewable energy, grid structure, supply competition, and grid-development plans.[1][2] The 2018 report recorded 20 Plenum meetings and 97 substantial decisions, among them 15 on electricity-market reform and regulation and 17 promoting renewable energy; the Authority's strategy and policy-control branch received the Civil Service Commission's Badge of Excellence for that year.[3]

The standards enabling local-grid disconnection, required under Government Resolution 490 of May 7, 2023, had not been published for public hearing at the time of the cited INSS publication, raising questions about the pace of implementation.[10]

The circumstances surrounding the 2015 departure of chair Orit Farkash-Hacohen remain politically sensitive. A Jewish Virtual Library profile attributes her removal to her public criticism of the natural-gas monopoly and high gas prices, but that explanation was not independently corroborated by an official or contemporaneous source reviewed for this article and should therefore be treated as contested.[5]