Securing Energy for Development in West Bank and Gaza

The Palestinian Territories face significant energy security challenges, already severe in Gaza, but also emerging in the West Bank. In Gaza, the available power supply only meets half the demand leading to rolling blackouts, alternating between 8...

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Main Author: World Bank Group
Format: Report
Language:English
en_US
Published: World Bank, Washington, DC 2017
Subjects:
Online Access:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/351061505722970487/Main-report
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/28468
id okr-10986-28468
recordtype oai_dc
spelling okr-10986-284682021-06-14T10:11:27Z Securing Energy for Development in West Bank and Gaza World Bank Group ELECTRICITY POWER GENERATION IMPORTING ELECTRICITY RENEWABLE ENERGY ENERGY DEMAND ENERGY TRANSMISSION INFRASTRUCTURE ENERGY EFFICIENCY ENERGY FINANCE The Palestinian Territories face significant energy security challenges, already severe in Gaza, but also emerging in the West Bank. In Gaza, the available power supply only meets half the demand leading to rolling blackouts, alternating between 8 hours on and 8 hours off. Although the West Bank generally enjoys 24-hour power supply, there have been emerging power shortages during peak winter and summer months. With Palestinian electricity demand projected to grow at an average annual rate of around 3.5 percent for the coming years, a little faster in Gaza and slower in the West Bank, energy shortages can be expected to deteriorate unless new supply options are found. Both Jordan and Egypt have recently overcome interlinked power supply crises caused by a shortage of Egyptian gas, and are now heading for significant power surpluses. In principle, existing interconnection capacity of 20 MW with Jordan and 20-30 MW with Egypt could be upgraded to support higher volumes of imports. However, Jordanian electricity is currently more expensive than Israeli power due to heavy reliance on LNG, but is expected to become cheaper as Israeli gas enters the Jordanian market and renewables increase their share in the Jordanian generation portfolio. On the other hand, the size of Jordan’s power system is on par with the size of Palestinian electricity demand, meaning that the amount of power available for export may not be so large relative to Palestinian needs. Egyptian power is currently cheaper than Israeli power due to the historic low cost of natural gas; however, the size of the Egyptian power system is 30 times larger than the Palestinian demand making it relatively easy for Egypt to supply the scale of power that West Bank and Gaza might need. Nevertheless, historical imports from Egypt into Gaza (which have been managed through a local Egyptian distribution company rather than the national Egyptian transmission operator) have proved unreliable due to security issues in Sinai. In addition, Gaza has not yet established any payment record with Egypt since the cost of these imports has been covered by third party benefactors to date. Finally, neither Jordan, nor Egypt have access to the controversial ‘net lending’ mechanism that has so far provided Israel with an informal payment security mechanism to at least partially offset any payment risk from Palestinian consumers. 2017-10-05T20:53:54Z 2017-10-05T20:53:54Z 2017-06-30 Report http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/351061505722970487/Main-report http://hdl.handle.net/10986/28468 English en_US CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Economic & Sector Work :: Energy Study Economic & Sector Work Middle East and North Africa West Bank and Gaza
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution Digital Repositories
building World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection World Bank
language English
en_US
topic ELECTRICITY
POWER GENERATION
IMPORTING ELECTRICITY
RENEWABLE ENERGY
ENERGY DEMAND
ENERGY TRANSMISSION INFRASTRUCTURE
ENERGY EFFICIENCY
ENERGY FINANCE
spellingShingle ELECTRICITY
POWER GENERATION
IMPORTING ELECTRICITY
RENEWABLE ENERGY
ENERGY DEMAND
ENERGY TRANSMISSION INFRASTRUCTURE
ENERGY EFFICIENCY
ENERGY FINANCE
World Bank Group
Securing Energy for Development in West Bank and Gaza
geographic_facet Middle East and North Africa
West Bank and Gaza
description The Palestinian Territories face significant energy security challenges, already severe in Gaza, but also emerging in the West Bank. In Gaza, the available power supply only meets half the demand leading to rolling blackouts, alternating between 8 hours on and 8 hours off. Although the West Bank generally enjoys 24-hour power supply, there have been emerging power shortages during peak winter and summer months. With Palestinian electricity demand projected to grow at an average annual rate of around 3.5 percent for the coming years, a little faster in Gaza and slower in the West Bank, energy shortages can be expected to deteriorate unless new supply options are found. Both Jordan and Egypt have recently overcome interlinked power supply crises caused by a shortage of Egyptian gas, and are now heading for significant power surpluses. In principle, existing interconnection capacity of 20 MW with Jordan and 20-30 MW with Egypt could be upgraded to support higher volumes of imports. However, Jordanian electricity is currently more expensive than Israeli power due to heavy reliance on LNG, but is expected to become cheaper as Israeli gas enters the Jordanian market and renewables increase their share in the Jordanian generation portfolio. On the other hand, the size of Jordan’s power system is on par with the size of Palestinian electricity demand, meaning that the amount of power available for export may not be so large relative to Palestinian needs. Egyptian power is currently cheaper than Israeli power due to the historic low cost of natural gas; however, the size of the Egyptian power system is 30 times larger than the Palestinian demand making it relatively easy for Egypt to supply the scale of power that West Bank and Gaza might need. Nevertheless, historical imports from Egypt into Gaza (which have been managed through a local Egyptian distribution company rather than the national Egyptian transmission operator) have proved unreliable due to security issues in Sinai. In addition, Gaza has not yet established any payment record with Egypt since the cost of these imports has been covered by third party benefactors to date. Finally, neither Jordan, nor Egypt have access to the controversial ‘net lending’ mechanism that has so far provided Israel with an informal payment security mechanism to at least partially offset any payment risk from Palestinian consumers.
format Report
author World Bank Group
author_facet World Bank Group
author_sort World Bank Group
title Securing Energy for Development in West Bank and Gaza
title_short Securing Energy for Development in West Bank and Gaza
title_full Securing Energy for Development in West Bank and Gaza
title_fullStr Securing Energy for Development in West Bank and Gaza
title_full_unstemmed Securing Energy for Development in West Bank and Gaza
title_sort securing energy for development in west bank and gaza
publisher World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate 2017
url http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/351061505722970487/Main-report
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/28468
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