Electricity Authority against the PM's economic advisor: "Proposals that endanger critical infrastructure for the national economy"

The unusual move by the Electricity Authority last month to stop processing new requests for connecting data centers to the grid, due to their massive scale — three times the average consumption of the entire economy — has put it on a collision course with the National Economic Council in the Prime Minister's Office. The council chairman, Prof. Avi Simhon, who also serves as the economic advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, views the decision of the Electricity Authority and the 'Noga' power system management company as an "unacceptable step" and one that contradicts government policy and decisions on the matter.

In recent days, his deputy, Lior Haimovich, revealed online the council's position, which was sent to the Electricity Authority as part of a hearing it is holding ahead of formulating a new position regarding data centers. Earlier this evening, when the chairman of the Electricity Authority, Amir Shavit, shared with his followers on the social network LinkedIn about another hearing process he opened, ahead of changing the electricity pricing method for private producers, he also responded to the open criticism from the National Economic Council.

"I saw that there are those who recommend managing the electricity sector using slogans in the air, without understanding the complexity of supplying electricity to all consumers, the existing gas volumes for the electricity sector, international comparisons in the field, and other required depth," said Shavit.

He added that "it is even stranger that such a body tried to lead decisions on planning data centers in recent months, and without success, of course. Such and other proposals are difficult to accept from a body whose all proposals in the present and past, if they had been accepted, would have endangered critical infrastructure for the national economy."

While the National Economic Council headed by Simhon proposes to require every data center to have independent electricity production to serve it, Shavit wrote that in this situation, projects for establishing data centers would be delayed for periods of about seven years or more. In a post uploaded by Simhon's deputy on the subject, which made the tension between the council and the authority public, Haimovich claimed that "Israel's global leadership in artificial intelligence is a strategic government challenge for the coming years. Unfortunately, it seems that not all government bodies are synchronized with this national goal." This, while accusing the authority of creating "blocking regulation" and creating difficulties in implementing government policy.