At a press conference held today (Wednesday), the electricity reform was launched, which will take effect on July 25. Starting Thursday next week, every consumer in Israel will be able to choose which supplier they purchase electricity from. This is a move that may grant consumers a discount of 5%-20% of the annual electricity tariff, and save each household hundreds and even thousands of shekels, depending on the suppliers' offers, the nature of use and the hours of electricity consumption.
The reform is another step towards breaking the electricity monopoly. The size of the market today is more than NIS 30 billion per year. The Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure expects that at least NIS 12 billion, and more than a million customers, will be transferred to private companies. If the discounts on the electricity bill do reach 20%, about two billion shekels will return to consumers.
Until now, only customers with a smart meter had the option to switch to a private electricity supplier. The reform that will come into effect next week will allow the association of consumers with suppliers even without a smart meter. Thus, each household will be able to contract with one of the eight companies that supply electricity privately.
Among the electricity supply license holders that will be available to the consumer are "Electra Power", "Pazgaz", "Mashav Energy", "Hot", "Bezeq", "Cellcom" and others. "These days we are already promoting the second phase of the reform," said the Minister of Energy and Infrastructure, Eli Cohen, "so the discount will continue to increase."