They are nice; they favor renewable energy; they oppose the tycoons; and they are trendy. Nonetheless, they went overboard. "They" are the Greens, who this week launched a noisy media campaign for rooftop photovoltaic energy systems with subsidized tariffs.
After already receiving two quotas for solar power, they are demanding more, targeting the quota promised to large solar energy farms. They assert that it is unacceptable to offer quotas only to large companies, while they receive nothing, abusing the public and the media's ignorance and short-term memory.
The arguments address the pet peeves of all the environmentally-conscious: behind the big solar farms are tycoons and foreign companies. We, the little guys, Israelis, employ thousands of people, generate renewable energy, and in contrast to the solar farms, which take up huge tracts of land, we save open spaces.
The very chutzpah of demanding something that has already been promised to someone else is matched by inaccurate claims about the rooftop solar facilities. What have they neglected to tell us about these facilities?
First is that the cost of electricity is eight times the cost of electricity generated by natural gas and other regular means. Secondly, it is not the state or Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) (TASE: ELEC.B22) that pays the differential in price, but us, the general public. The Ministry of Finance says that if the extra quotas are approved, they will raise the price of electricity by 10-15%.
Thirdly, while the rooftop solar facilities may be Israeli, their photovoltaic panels are actually manufactured in China, which means that most of the money paid in our electricity bills for the small, green Israeli facilities will end up at very large and very un-Israeli companies. Fourthly, it is not very clear exactly where these thousands of Israeli employees actually are - the average solar energy rooftop installer employs no more than five people.
Not every installer of rooftop solar energy facilities is participating in the demagogic campaign. Some companies are run by fair and serious people who know that the rooftop parties can't last forever. The groups that joined the campaign are environmental organizations, who only need the phrase "open spaces" in a headline to become willing accomplices.
Another participant is the Union of Local Authorities in Israel, which is a very interested party. Local authorities greedily eye the solar facilities on the roofs of public buildings in their jurisdictions. Some irresponsible person told them that they could make NIS 6 billion from these facilities.
What exactly are the rooftop solar facility installers demanding from the government? That we, the public, continue to finance them and the unnecessary electricity that they produce on equipment manufactured in China.
And as long as we're talking about demagoguery, then the old woman in public housing, the young couple in a rental apartment, and a poor family in the slums - in other words, people who do not have solar energy facilities on their roofs - will finance the owners of mansions, the factories, and chicken coops that have these facilities. This is social justice?
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on April 11, 2011
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