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Energix Renewable Energies

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אנרג׳יקס אנרגיות מתחדשות בע"מ
www.energix-group.com

A publicly traded Israeli company active in the field of renewable energy.

The company has several renewable energy projects in different stages of development in the occupied Syrian Golan, the West Bank and the Naqab.

ARAN Project

Through its subsidiary, Clean Wind Energy Ltd., the company  is developing the ARAN project for the construction of a large wind turbine farm, located in the occupied Syrian Golan, to generate electricity from wind energy. The project will include 41 wind turbines, 200 meters long each, on agricultural land owned by Syrian farmers.

The company holds a conditional license for a capacity of 104 MW for the wind farm which is expected to start its commercial operation in 2025, and to connect to the electricity grid in April 2027 with an estimated annual revenue of over NIS 90 million.

The turbines are planned to be built in the Northern Syrian Golan in two sites: the Suheita compound, on the southeastern side of Majdal Shams, and the Ra’abana compound, on the southwestern side of the village of Masaada, both of which are agricultural lands owned by Syrian farmers. The electrical substation will be located in Bar’on Junction, also in the occupied Golan. The ARAN wind farm will occupy about a fifth of the agricultural land that is still in the possession of Syrians in the occupied Golan and will deny them access to their natural resources.

In June 2023, dozens of protesters were injured by Israel Police’s crowd control weapons during protests against the construction of the wind farm’s turbines on their agricultural lands.

In September 2022, Energix paid part of the budget for the training of a special Police Force dedicated to securing the construction of its wind turbines and suppressing the protests of the local Druze community against the project. This was done in exchange for the police deploying their forces to secure the construction and prevent damages and delays in the project’s development.

In December 2021, Energix signed an agreement with the Israeli Ministry of Defense, to finance the development of a technological solution which ensures the turbines will not interfere with the Israeli military’s operations in the occupied Golan. Two thirds of the cost of the technological solution, estimated at NIS 250 million, will be paid by the company.

Since 2015, the company have signed contracts with local Syrian farmers to lease their lands for the construction of the wind turbines. According to the NGO Al-Marsad Human Rights Center, the contracts with the farmers include a demand that all farmers register their lands with Israel, and give the company “a designation of land rights that allows the company to destroy and utilize whatever it wants on the leased land”, and assure “a lack of exclusivity between Energix and landowners that allows Energix an unrestricted ability to pass the rights and obligations of the contract to another company or person”. Al-Marsad further noted that the compensation given to Syrian farmers is considerably low compared to the compensation given to Israelis who are leasing their lands for similar projects. While Syrian farmers are offered one percent of the project’s revenues, Israelis have been offered as much as five times more. In May 2021, 88 farmers and six private water associations filed a lawsuit with the court requesting to stop the company project claiming that part of it would be established on their land without their consent. According to the lawsuit, most of the farmers who signed an agreement with Energix for land use withdrew their consent, and more than 5,000 Syrian residents signed a petition against the project and raising concerns about health and environmental consequences for the residents of the area.

In 2019, Energix filed suit against Al-Marsad, alleging defamation and claiming that Al-Marsad had incited a boycott in violation of Israel’s anti-boycott law. The lawsuit marks the first time the anti-boycott law has been used in an attempt to silence the speech and activities of a human rights organization.

For more on The Israeli Wind Energy Industry in the Occupied Syrian Golan read Who Profits’ flash report: Greenwashing the Golan.

Pilot Programs

In 2023 and 2022, the company was selected to participate in a pilot program launched by the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development to examine the feasibility of the dual use of agricultural land for electricity generation from solar energy. As part of the project, the company  was selected to construct an agro-voltaic facility in a vineyard in the settlement of Sha’al in the Syrian Golan.

Solar production in the West Bank

In 2019 and 2021, the Israeli Civil Administration (ICA) published two competitive procedures for setting tariffs for electricity generation using photovoltaic (PV) technology facilities in the West Bank, one for ground facilities and the second for dual-use facilities installed on the roofs of buildings, landfills, cemeteries, water or wastewater reservoirs, roads and interchanges, parking lots and fences. In March 2020, Energix won a tender from the Israeli Civil Administration (ICA) for the establishment of photovoltaic (PV) electricity production facilities with a capacity of 8.10 MW in the occupied West Bank.

Naqab

In May 2023, the Israeli Land Authority published the results of two tenders for NIS 1.06 billion for the design and construction of six photovoltaic facilities in an area of about 5,000 dunams and a capacity of about 850 MW in the Neot Hovav Industrial Zone in the Naqab. Energix, won one compound. The six lots are located within the Ramat Beka Special Military Industrial Zone plan, which occupies an area of approximately 112,838 dunams, and its planned expansion entails the demolition of 1,200 Bedouin homes while exposing thousands of Bedouin residents of the area to health risks.

Through its subsidiary Neot Hovav Ltd., the company owns the Neot Hovav solar field in the Naqab. Active since 2014, The 37.5 MW field spreads over 490 Dunam of land.

For more on developmental projects in the Naqab, see Who Profits Dynamic Map Tools of Dispossession in the Naqab: Development and Military Projects