Search

Background: Renewable energy (RE) systems are becoming a central component of the clean energy transition and are often seen as the way to combat climate change. Their establishment requires innovation, investments, and deployment policies for emerging technologies. Governments around the world are increasingly trying to create and support the energy-tech and climate-tech innovation ecosystems in their attempt to promote an innovation-supporting environment. However, energy innovation policies are often aligned with the dichotomous notion of technology-push and market-pull and overlook the social, political, and cultural contexts in which RE innovative technologies are embedded, and the multiple actors and interactions that are associated with their development. By combining the Middle-Out Perspective (MOP) and innovation literature, this paper argues that an innovation ecosystem could be weaved from the middle-out. Methods: This paper analyzes the case of 'Eilat-Eilot Renewable Energy Initiative' and Israel's RE innovation ecosystem creation through the lens of the MOP and applies a socio-technical interpretation to the push and pull terminology. Process tracing methodology was applied to trace a sequence of events to determine whether an actor was pushed or pulled, the formation of a network of actors, and its evolvement to an energy innovation ecosystem from the middle-out. Data for the analysis were collected from interviews, policy papers, media articles, and Governmental decisions. Results: The analysis demonstrates how middle actors push the implementation of RE technologies in Israel, and at the same time pull decision-makers and other middle actors to promote the low carbon transition. The push and pull forces and the interactions between actors lead to the engagement of new stakeholders in the innovation network, the adoption of more ambitious RE targets and supporting policies, and the creation of an effective RE innovation ecosystem. Conclusions: This paper uses the MOP as an analytical framework and the push and pull terminology to demonstrate how a middle actor initiates and develops an actor-network by interacting with other actors. As this network broadens, it forms an effective innovation ecosystem. A network of actors has the potential to lead change, provide innovative ideas, initiate research, encourage investments, create employment possibilities, and promote regional sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solar photovoltaic (PV) is one of the leading renewable energy technologies that has the potential to generate a large amount of electricity. However, this potential may not be fully utilized on the national level. Obstacles to its use include electrical power system restrictions designed to avoid its possible adverse effect on the stability of the system, its reliability and the quality of its supply, and the limited land areas on which to deploy it. This paper presents a GIS-based land suitability analysis that determines suitable areas for installing large-scale, ground-mounted solar photovoltaic farms and their corresponding technical potential. Our contribution is in providing a realistic assessment of how PV systems can actually be connected to existing electrical grids without disrupting the local power system's hosting capacity, capabilities and constraints. We tested our proposal using Israel's entire national power system configuration as a case study. Our results indicate that a total of 2.93 GW of installed capacity and 5.16 TWh of energy generation can theoretically be integrated into Israel's existing electrical grid, without any changes in the existing system. This potential is equivalent to approximately 15% and 7% of the country's total installed capacity and energy generation, respectively. In 2020, Israel increased its target for renewable energy from 17% to 30% of national energy production by 2030. Given that ground-mounted PV can provide only a small part of Israel's energy needs, without seeking other renewable energy solutions and making major changes, meeting this ambitious goal is unlikely. • PV potential to generate a large amount of electricity may not be fully utilized. • Obstacles include electrical power system restrictions and the limited land areas. • We provide a realistic assessment using Israel's entire national power system. • Assessed potential is equivalent to ~7% of the country's total energy generation. • Currently, meeting Israel's ambitious goal of 30% by 2030 is unlikely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The limitedness of the nonrenewable local energy resources in Israel, even in the background of the later gas fields' findings, continues to force the state to devote various efforts towards 'green' energy development. These efforts include installations, both for the solar and for wind energy, thus improving the diversity of energy sources. While the standard discounted cash flow (DCF) method using the net present value (NPV) criterion is extensively adopted to evaluate investments, the standard DCF method is inappropriate for the rapidly changing investment climate and for the managerial flexibility in investment decisions. In recent years, the real options analysis (ROA) technique has been widely applied in many studies for the valuation of renewable energy investment projects. Taking into account the above background, we apply, in this study, the real options analysis approach for the valuation of wind energy turbines and apply it to the analysis of wind energy economic potential in Israel, which is the context of our work. We hypothesize that due to nature of wind energy production uncertainties, the ROA method is better than the alternative. The novelty of this paper includes the following: real world wind statistics of the Merom Golan site in Israel (velocity 3.73 m/s, with a standard deviation of 2.03 m/s), a realistic power generation estimation (power generation of 1205.84 kW with a standard deviation of about 0.5% in annual value which is worth about 1.3 M$ per annum), and an economic model to evaluate the profitability of such a project. We thus discuss the existing challenges of diversifying renewable energy sources in Israel by adding wind installations. Our motivation is to introduce a method which will allow investors and officials to take into account uncertainties when deciding in investing in such wind installations. The outcomes of the paper, which are obtained using the method of Weibull statistics and the Black–Scholes ROA technique, include the result that market price volatility adds to the uncertainties much more than any wind fluctuations, provided that the analysis is integrated over a long enough time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Meeting greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets will require a significant increase in electricity production from sustainable and renewable sources such as solar energy. Farmers have recognized this need as a chance to increase the profitability of their farms by allocating farmland to solar power production. However, the shift from agriculture to power production has many tradeoffs, arising primarily from alternative land uses and other means of production. This paper models the farmers' decision as a constrained profit maximization problem, subject to the amount of land owned by the farmers, who have to allocate it between agriculture and solar power fields, while considering factors affecting production costs. The farmers' problem is nested in the social welfare maximization problem, which includes additional factors such as ecological and aesthetical values of the competing land uses. Empirical analysis using data from a solar field operating in Israel shows that landowners will choose to have solar power production on their land unless agricultural production generates an unusually high net income. Adding the values of non-market services provided by agricultural land does not change this result. The consideration of the reduction in GHG emissions further increases the social welfare from solar fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local communities have been identified as crucial actors in the diffusion of renewable energy, considered one of the most important eco-innovations of our time. Anecdotal evidence has indicated that local communities tend to play different roles in promoting eco-innovation, particularly renewable energy. However, what this heterogeneity looks like has not yet been quantitatively examined. Our study addresses this gap by systematically exploring the involvement of communities in the promotion of eco-innovation at the local level. We focus on their participation in renewable energy partnerships with the private sector in rural areas in Israel's southern periphery. Our study indicates that local communities play diverse roles in promoting renewable energy through varying involvement in finance, ownership, knowledge contribution, employment, energy consumption, and, most common according to our findings, the leasing of natural resources. The study further tracks the factors that shape this diverse involvement, including the community's land size, population size, socio-economic ranking, and experience. Finally, the study unpacks the levels of risks and gains that local communities face when promoting renewable energy through their partnerships with the private sector. By confronting theory with quantitative research, this study sheds light on the diverse roles local communities play in the diffusion of eco-innovation, a prerequisite for renewable energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social acceptance of energy policies and renewable energy technologies is crucial in the era of the renewable energy transition. Yet, little is known about Israel's transition in this regard. One thousand five hundred Israeli citizens were engaged through a survey to examine their perceptions of climate change and awareness regarding renewable energy technologies and national energy policy. Individual-level factors such as gender, age, and education were included in the survey to assess their possible influence on replies. The main findings were the following: (i) climate change impact is not felt as an immediate threat by the majority, and there is (ii) a lack of accurate knowledge about renewable energies; (iii) a lack of awareness regarding national energy and climate policy; and (iv) a lack of trust in citizens' role in energy decision making. These findings are evaluated as a barrier to public engagement within the renewable energy development process in Israel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence indicates that various countries around the world set renewable energy targets in an effort to promote clean and sustainable energy sources at the expense of polluting, fossil fuel-based energy systems. While scholars have discussed extensively how these targets affect the promotion of renewable energy sources, their effect on fossil fuel policy at the national level has been neglected. The current study addresses this research lacuna, examining the impact of renewable energy targets on decision making vis à vis fossil fuels, given that these energy sources are considered substitutes. This is achieved by focusing on intra-governmental discussions in Israel during 2020–2021 that sought to formulate the country's natural gas export policy as a function of its ambitious renewable energy targets. The study demonstrates how renewable energy targets, which are often set by politicians, can significantly influence decision making concerning fossil fuels, even when they contradict professional regulators' positions and from their perspective represent a risk to national energy security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding public attitudes to climate change and energy preferences is key to a successful transformation to a low-carbon society. While many studies have examined relationships between specific variables, little is known about the breadth of relationships between multiple climate and energy-relevant concepts. In this paper we used network models to explore and visualize relationships between climate change beliefs and energy preferences, using data from Round 8 of the European Social Survey (ESS8). ESS8 was conducted in 22 European countries and Israel. We found positive relationships between climate change salience, climate change beliefs, climate change concern, personal norm, and personal outcome expectancy, in line with prominent theories within the area. Moreover, beliefs on efficacy of actions of different actors (i.e., governments, large groups of people) to reduce climate change were positively related, and participants had consistent preferences for fossil energy sources or renewable energy sources, respectively. Furthermore, two types of energy security concerns could be distinguished, reflecting temporary and long term threats to energy security, respectively. Energy supply source preferences, energy policy support, and energy conservation behaviors were mostly not uniquely related to the other module variables. Furthermore, the relationships between variables, reflected in the network structure, were comparable across countries. Image 1 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]