The Public Utilities Electricity Authority has instructed the Israel Electric Corp. (IEC) to suspend retroactive ‘systems service costs’ charges to households with rooftop solar energy panels and to further examine the matter. Some of the individual bills come to thousands of shekels. «Globes» revealed earlier this week that the IEC had begun collecting the charge, which included arrears for two years, four years after the Public Utilities Electricity Authority agreed to the charge. The IEC has been told to submit its examination to the Public Utilities Electricity Authority within two weeks.
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As «Globes» reported, the Public Utilities Electricity Authority instructed the IEC in 2022 to collect ‘systems costs» for consumption of electricity produced and stored by homeowners (as opposed to systems whereby homeowners sells the electricity to the IEC and buy it back at a higher price).
The payment, which is NIS 0.9.09 agorot per kWh) is collected to cover services that the IEC provides that enables ongoing consumption, such as balancing demand and maintaining the correct frequency of the system. However, for about four years, the electricity company has not collected payment due to delays in developing the computer system to manage this.
Starting with the electricity bills for October 2025, owners of rooftop solar panels connected to a storage system began to pay these costs. Moreover, the IEC began to collect these payments retroactively for two years — the maximum period of time that it is legally allowed to collect retroactively. It began sending text messages warning rooftop solar panel owners about this, in anticipation of electricity bills that could reach thousands of shekels.
A letter sent by from the Public Utilities Electricity Authority to IEC VP legal counsel Gershon Berkowitz said, «We request that you conduct an investigation into the sequence of events that led to the failure to collect the tariff from consumers on time, and the commencement of its collection only after approximately four years from the date of the decision.»
Published by Globes, Israel business news — en.globes.co.il — on January 7, 2026.
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2026.
