Ministry of Energy Director General on the desalination crisis: "There is no precedent for this, but there will be no water shortage"

"It is not a shame to say 'we were not familiar with the phenomenon of desalinated water'. The greatest experts have not known this in the last thirty years, there is no precedent for this," said Yossi Dayan, Director General of the Ministry of Energy, in a conversation with Yuval Azoulay from Calcalist at the Calcalist and Discount Energy Conference.

Dayan addressed the crisis that has struck Israel's desalination plants in recent days. According to Dayan, there is a very large strip along the coast with major algae pollution and water turbidity that makes pumping and desalination difficult. "The water sector is a robust sector. Up to this moment, there has been no shortage for households or industry. Yes, we reduced the watering of public gardens, but there has not been and will not be a shortage for households," he stated.

A significant part of the desalination plants have already returned to production. Dayan noted that pollution affected three plants, but at the moment there is no forecast of a water shortage. "I look at every process as a learning process. We are analyzing capabilities on how to deal with similar events in the future. For example, if we deepen the water pumping in the sea, then this problem will not arise. It is a solvable issue that should be taken in proportion," he added.

Dayan also addressed the series of crises that have struck the energy and water sectors in recent years. "I have been in the position for about three years and every catastrophe happened during my tenure. We have experienced crises, but the energy sector has proven resilience. At no stage was there a shortage of energy, water, electricity, fuel, or gas."

Regarding the Electricity Authority's decision to freeze for 140 days the processing of new requests for connecting server farms, Dayan explained that the requests require re-examination. "They requested over 27 gigawatts, while the average consumption in Israel is 9 gigawatts. A significant part of those 27 gigawatts are empty requests; there was a frenzy, and some are absurd. We stopped to think and examine, as we want to allow server farms that have feasibility and prevent secondary trading in licenses."

Regarding the Dayan Committee, which is planning Israel's natural gas sector policy, the Director General stated that the committee is nearing the completion of its work. "We encountered two central points: how long we will keep the gas and maintaining competition. I am not ready for a change in regulation retroactively, as it creates a negative attitude towards investments. We have an interest in creating regulatory certainty," he concluded.