Israel's National Planning and Building Council on Thursday voted to delay until the end of 2022 to designate additional land for solar facilities to generate electricity, as requested by the Finance Ministry.
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At the voting session, it was realized that less than a quarter of more than 4,000 acres of additional land – in Israel's Negev desert – set aside over a year ago for solar energy installations were actually used, i24News cited a report in Haaretz.
The council decided to wait until the end of the year to determine whether such land is really needed for the solar facilities.
Some 11,600 acres have already been approved for photovoltaic solar energy installations.
However, the Finance Ministry on Tuesday said almost another 5,000 acres are needed to reach Israel's goal of generating 30% of the country's electricity from renewable sources by 2030.
That would require 12,000 megawatts of additional renewable energy and would come mainly from photovoltaic solar panels, according to the Planning Authority.
Of that, 10,000 megawatts are due to be generated by solar panels at sites being used for other purposes - farms, reservoirs, residential and commercial buildings, Haaretz reported.
Shani Mandel, head of the Finance Ministry's energy sector, voiced her frustration with the recurrent denial of solar development plans.
"It's like trying to solve the housing crisis only through urban renewal and not freeing up any land for new construction," she said.
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Israel's Environmental Protection Ministry told the council that it saw no need to allocate more land for solar, according to Haaretz.
Environment officials referred to a study that concluded that the greenfield sites and roofs already approved would be enough to meet, or even surpass, the 30% target.
i24NEWS contributed to this report.
