Within months of being exempted from land betterment levies, many small solar installations are already being built on moshav farmland. According to figures obtained by Globes, two projects have already been connected to the electricity grid and another 10 are under construction. The potential is described as equivalent to at least one full gas-fired power plant, with each plot owner able to earn hundreds of thousands of shekels.
The change stems from a January legal opinion by the Planning Administration’s legal adviser, attorney Efrat Brand, who said these private “parcel A” plots do not require a betterment levy. Instead, owners would pay the Israel Land Authority a substitute fee averaging 30,000 shekels per dunam, and the authority would compensate local councils for part of the gap. That framework allows solar fields of up to one dunam and 200 kilowatts.
Ron Eiper, head of sustainable energy at the Energy Ministry, said that if about 30,000 families with such plots each build a 200-kilowatt facility, the country could gain up to 6 gigawatts of capacity. He added that even 5,000 families would still add about 1 gigawatt, much of it near demand centers, and could be paired with storage. By comparison, new conventional power stations typically provide about 800 megawatts.
The first grid connection was completed in Bnei Atarot, between Ben Gurion Airport and Yehud, in a project by veteran solar developer Nofar and the group Nahala Solar. Energy Minister Eli Cohen and Israel Electric Corporation chair Amir Shavit publicly backed the move. The Regional Council Center, led by Shai Hajaj, opposes the policy and says it will strip local authorities of significant revenue. Several councils have appealed to the Central District appeals committee, where a ruling is expected in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, Nahala Solar founder and CEO Roy Halevi has already paid the levies under protest and is advancing the projects. A second project in Na’am in the Shfela has also been connected, and more than 10 additional projects are being built. Kibbutzim are also pressing for a similar route, arguing they are disadvantaged because they do not have parcel A plots and have not been granted a parallel permit track for projects up to 80 dunams.
