Fearing Hezbollah Rockets, “Israel” Electric Company Prepares for Outages

By Staff, Agencies

“Israel’s” Electric Company began on Tuesday a drill simulating power outage caused by Hezbollah rockets, to prepare for a possible war with the Lebanese Resistance group.

The exercise will last about a week and a half will include restoring power to the grid [changing the voltage of electric current] during wartime, repairing damage to power generation sites, handling hazardous materials incidents, aerial drills, and more.

The largest source of electricity production in the Zionist entity, about 70%, is natural gas, followed by coal, diesel, fuel oil, and renewable energies. Normally, diesel or fuel oil is not used, but in emergencies, when gas rigs are shut down due to the level of risk and “Israel” loses its main energy source, the entity has a stockpile of diesel that can be used.

“Gas rigs are sensitive, and when a rig is active, it can turn into a ticking bomb,” said Sami Turgeman, Chairman of “Noga”, “Israel's” Independent Power Management company.

“If a precise missile hits it, we will certainly lose the rig and possibly the gas reservoir as well. Therefore, the immediate action taken by the ‘Israeli’ government would be to stop gas production and empty the rigs, rendering the pipeline irrelevant. If a missile hits the pipeline? We can call a plumber,” he said.

Turgeman further cautioned that Almost everyone agrees that in a state of war, there will be malfunctions and disruptions in the electricity supply. It is likely that more circles of the population will be evacuated if the conflict in the north expands, and even though the IEC has the capability to fix malfunctions, no one expects them to do so if the danger is too great.”

“A significant portion of our power plants are located in very remote areas and have active defense systems,” he said. “Our production is not necessarily in the north. Although the IEC has fortified its sites, we should assume that there will be damage causing local and regional power outages. How long will it take to restore power? It could take hours, a day, or two for any affected area. We are preparing for this.”

Almost a month ago, the CEO of "Noga", Shaul Goldstein, warned that “our situation is not good,” estimating that Hezbollah could easily take down the power grid. His comments caused panic.

Haim Yellin, an advisor to the solar energy company Doral and a member of Kibbutz “Be'eri”, explained that: “They were angry at Goldstein because he told the truth. You don't prepare a sector for an emergency during a war. You prepare it beforehand. Create green islands, and neighborhoods with energy storage. But there is no storage in ‘Israel’ because there is no regulation. Take, for example, Kibbutz ‘Dafna’ in the north, which can store electricity using solar panels or agro-solar. But there is no regulation. Why? Just because. This was one of the proposals I requested in the recovery program. Think about a kibbutz or moshav being able to store energy. In an emergency, it would be enough.”