Resilience of Electricity Transition Strategies in Israel Under Deep Uncertainty

Abstract

Electricity systems increasingly operate under deep uncertainty driven by geopolitical risk, volatile fuel markets, trade fragmentation, security threats, and technological change. Under such conditions, cost-optimal planning based on assumed trajectories may lead to fragile outcomes, particularly for small and geopolitically exposed systems such as Israel’s. This paper assesses the resilience of alternative electricity transition strategies for Israel using a qualitative robustness framework inspired by Decision Making under Deep Uncertainty and scenario-based energy security analysis. Six policy-relevant strategies are evaluated across structurally distinct stress scenarios. Resilience is assessed along three dimensions: security of supply, dependency exposure, and economic vulnerability, using anchored qualitative scoring and dominance rules. The results indicate that gas-centric strategies exhibit limited robustness, while strategies combining solar deployment with adaptive gas management, smart grids, microgrids, and domestic clean-technology capabilities achieve higher resilience across a wide range of futures. The paper contributes a structured qualitative approach to resilience assessment and offers policy-relevant insights for electricity transitions under deep uncertainty.

1. Introduction

Electricity systems worldwide are undergoing profound transformation under the combined pressures of decarbonization, rising demand, major technological advances, and increasing geopolitical instability. In this context, energy policy can no longer be evaluated solely through cost efficiency under stable assumptions but must also account for resilience, adaptability, and long-term strategic autonomy. These considerations are particularly important for small and geopolitically exposed countries whose electricity systems combine limited interconnections, concentrated infrastructure, and high exposure to external shocks.

Israel provides a particularly instructive case. Offshore natural gas discoveries have reshaped its electricity system over the past decade, enabling a rapid shift away from coal and strengthening short-term energy security. At the same time, Israel benefits from exceptional solar resources and a dense technological ecosystem, creating the potential for a solar-led electricity transition. This dual endowment, however, also generates strategic tension. Continued reliance on gas exposes the system to long-term risks related to reserve depletion, export market uncertainty, price volatility, and infrastructure vulnerability. Conversely, a rapid expansion of variable renewable generation raises concerns regarding system reliability, dependency on imported technologies, and the capacity to absorb shocks under adverse conditions.

Most of the existing literature on electricity system planning approaches these trade-offs through quantitative optimization models. Such models typically identify cost-minimizing generation and investment pathways under assumed trajectories for fuel prices, technology costs, demand growth, and policy constraints. While these approaches provide valuable insights under relatively stable conditions, their relevance is increasingly questioned when uncertainty is deep rather than parametric [1,2]. Geopolitical disruptions, trade fragmentation, security shocks, and non-linear technological change challenge the validity of point forecasts and probabilistic assumptions, and they may render strategies that are optimal under a baseline scenario fragile when conditions deviate from expectations.

An alternative strand of research emphasizes resilience and robustness as central criteria for energy system assessment [3]. Instead of optimizing performance against a single expected future, this literature focuses on the ability of energy systems to maintain essential functions, absorb disruptions, and adapt under stress. Approaches grouped under Decision-Making under Deep Uncertainty (DMDU) address situations in which probabilities cannot be reliably assigned and decision-makers must evaluate strategies across multiple, structurally distinct futures [4,5,6]. Within this framework, robustness is assessed through comparative performance across diverse stress scenarios, often relying on qualitative or semi-quantitative reasoning where probabilistic modeling is not credible. A core operational contribution of DMDU is to make resilience assessable through stress testing and vulnerability analysis: Robust Decision-Making (RDM) evaluates strategies over large ensembles of futures to identify conditions under which they fail and to prioritize options that avoid unacceptable outcomes [7], while Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways (DAPP) emphasizes adaptive capacity over time through signposts and contingent actions [8]. Scenario discovery methods further strengthen procedural transparency by linking poor outcomes to explicit combinations of uncertain drivers [9].

Recent energy policy research increasingly applies these ideas to the energy transition, arguing that long-lived infrastructure and system architecture choices should be evaluated not only in terms of expected costs or emissions, but also in terms of their robustness and flexibility across uncertain technological, geopolitical, and demand trajectories. Zhang et al. [10] review and compare stochastic, robust, and adaptive optimization approaches for power-system planning, showing how different modeling paradigms address deep uncertainty in fuel prices, technology costs, and demand growth. Rather than treating uncertainty as a narrow probabilistic risk, they emphasize the importance of stress-testing grid expansion and investment strategies against structurally different future states and ensuring that planning models incorporate operational flexibility and recourse options. Building on uncertainty-aware planning approaches, Rodríguez-Matas et al. [11] operationalize robustness at the policy design level by combining systematic multi-scenario modeling with explicit worst-case protection indicators, enabling the construction of policy packages that limit exposure to extreme adverse outcomes across multiple objectives. In parallel, electricity security-of-supply research has operationalized resilience through multi-dimensional assessment frameworks such as the Electricity Supply Resilience Index (ESRI), which evaluates the capacity of national power systems to withstand disruptions using technical, diversity, and governance indicators and tests the robustness of results across alternative aggregation assumptions [12]. Together, these contributions reinforce a resilience-oriented approach in which energy transition strategies are judged not by average performance, but by their ability to maintain adequacy, limit vulnerability, and preserve adaptive flexibility under deep uncertainty.

The rapid growth in electricity demand driven by data centers and high-technology industries should be specifically taken into account. This factor is particularly relevant in the Israeli context, given the country’s large and globally competitive technology sector, which may significantly increase baseline electricity consumption and peak demand in the coming decades. Such structural demand pressures further reinforce the importance of system scalability and resilience.

A limited body of work has highlighted structural vulnerabilities and resilience considerations in the Israeli electricity sector. Early strategic analysis by the RAND Corporation applied robust decision-making methods to Israel’s gas-based energy transition, underscoring the value of adaptive strategies under uncertainty [13]. More recent studies examine electricity system resilience under security emergencies, emphasizing risks related to centralized infrastructure and limited redundancy [14,15,16].

However, relatively little work systematically compares alternative electricity system architectures—such as centralized versus decentralized designs or differing roles for gas, renewables, and digital coordination—using a robustness-oriented framework that evaluates performance across multiple, structurally distinct futures.

This paper addresses this gap by evaluating the relative resilience of alternative electricity transition strategies under deep uncertainty. Rather than identifying a single optimal pathway, we conduct a qualitative robustness assessment comparing six policy-relevant strategies across structurally distinct stress scenarios, reflecting uncertainty in gas market regimes, clean-technology supply chains, security disruptions, demand growth, and technological breakthroughs.

Resilience is assessed along three core dimensions: security of supply, understood as the ability to meet demand while containing failures and adapting operationally; dependency exposure, capturing reliance on elements that cannot be quickly substituted, in particular vulnerable fuels, imported equipment, and fixed export infrastructure; and economic vulnerability, reflecting exposure to price shocks, stranded assets, and destabilizing fiscal outcomes. Each strategy is evaluated qualitatively against these criteria using an anchored scoring framework. Overall resilience is derived through dominance rules rather than numerical averaging, in order to avoid compensating fundamentally different vulnerabilities with artificial precision.

The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, it proposes a structured qualitative methodology for assessing electricity system resilience under deep uncertainty, complementing forecast-based planning approaches. Second, it applies this framework to Israel, a highly exposed energy system that illustrates the limits of cost-optimal planning under unstable conditions. Third, it provides policy-relevant insights into how combinations of solar deployment, adaptive gas management, smart grids, microgrids, and domestic clean-technology capabilities shape resilience across a wide range of plausible futures.

The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 describes the key technical, institutional, and industrial characteristics of Israel’s electricity system that constitute the empirical basis for the analysis and define the strategy building blocks. Section 3 presents the analytical framework and methodology, defining the strategies, scenarios, and resilience criteria used in the assessment. Section 4 reports the results of the qualitative resilience assessment. Section 5 discusses the implications of these findings for energy policy and system design, as well as the limitations of the approach. Section 6 concludes.

2. Key Technical, Institutional, and Industrial Characteristics of Israel’s Electricity System

2.1. Structural Characteristics and Vulnerabilities of the Current Electricity System

Israel’s electricity system is historically characterized by large, centralized power stations, increasingly fueled by offshore natural gas reserves, notably the Tamar, Leviathan, and Karish/Tanin fields, which followed the earlier Yam Tethys complex and together accounted for about 709 billion cubic meters of proved gas reserves at the end of 2023. While these gas discoveries marked a transformative step, this heavy dependence on a non-renewable resource now presents significant long-term economic, strategic, and environmental risks. Gas reserves are inherently limited, posing a fundamental challenge to sustainability. Furthermore, conflicting forecasts from energy experts highlight the deep uncertainty surrounding long-term gas demand, making it critical for Israel to preserve strategic flexibility in the face of extreme scenarios.

Beyond economic and market concerns, Israel’s centralized gas-based energy system creates critical vulnerabilities in security and resilience. The concentration of generation and transmission in a few large facilities creates single points of failure exposed to diverse risks. Recent regional conflicts have underscored these vulnerabilities: attacks and tensions have led to temporary shutdowns of offshore rigs and gas fields, and disruption of export operations [17]. This fragility is compounded by threats from cyberattacks and sabotage, which can quickly disable centralized infrastructure and trigger widespread outages, as centralized systems generally lack the operational flexibility and rapid recovery capabilities needed in a volatile geopolitical context.

2.2. Untapped Solar Power: Israel’s Major Electricity Opportunity

Israel possesses substantial solar energy potential due to its high levels of solar irradiation and favorable climatic conditions, which make solar photovoltaic (PV) generation a central component of the country’s renewable energy strategy [18]. Renewable electricity currently represents a modest but growing share of the national electricity mix, accounting for approximately 12–15% of total generation, with solar PV providing the vast majority of renewable output. Despite this expansion, Israel’s electricity system remains dominated by fossil fuels. Natural gas accounts for roughly 70% of electricity generation, while coal continues to provide a smaller but non-negligible share of supply [18].

Renewable energy capacity has increased steadily in recent years, driven primarily by solar deployment, and now constitutes a significant share of installed generation capacity [19]. Government policy targets further expansion, with Israel aiming to achieve a 30% renewable electricity share by 2030, largely through accelerated solar deployment and associated grid and storage development [20].

These domestic dynamics must be interpreted in light of broader global trends. Over the past decade, the economics of solar power and energy storage have changed dramatically. The cost of solar PV declined by nearly 77% between 2010 and 2018, while lithium-ion battery costs fell by more than 85%, substantially improving the competitiveness of renewable electricity even in the absence of subsidies and enabling wider adoption globally [21].

As deployment has accelerated, large-scale solar penetration has begun to reshape electricity markets themselves. López Prol et al. [22] analyze the California market and describe the phenomenon of price cannibalization, whereby high solar output depresses wholesale electricity prices during periods of high renewable generation. This effect illustrates that declining costs do not merely expand capacity but also alter price formation and the economic role of dispatchable resources. Remarkably, by early 2025, the state of Texas, despite its abundance of crude oil and natural gas, had installed more solar capacity than California. Renewable electricity is not only carbon-free, but also largely insulated from fuel price volatility once capital costs are incurred. By contrast, natural gas increasingly functions as a flexible backup, providing dispatchable capacity during periods of low solar output rather than serving as a dominant baseload technology.

Comparable trends are observed across the Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, and European regions. Egypt initially pledged 42% renewable electricity by 2035 and later accelerated its goal to 2030. Saudi Arabia has announced plans to install 40 GW of PV capacity, 16 GW of wind power, and 2.7 GW of concentrated solar power (CSP) by 2030, with the stated objective of supplying roughly half of national electricity demand from renewable sources. Jordan already generates 27% of its electricity from renewables, primarily solar. In the OECD, Portugal plans to raise the share of renewables in electricity consumption to 93% by 2030, up from 61% in 2023. France signaled about 40% renewable electricity by 2030 in alignment with EU goals, but its latest draft focuses on a 58% low-carbon mix without a firm renewables-only share. The Netherlands aims for 70%, after having already reached around 48% in 2023. The UK, above 40% in 2022, is progressing toward a decarbonized grid by 2035. Germany has set a legally binding goal of 80% renewable electricity by 2030.

Against this backdrop, Israel’s comparatively modest pace of solar deployment appears to reflect not only technical constraints but also structural and institutional factors. These include regulatory inertia, grid integration challenges, and policy preferences shaped by existing gas investments [16,23,24]. This underperformance is particularly notable given Israel’s strong research base and dense clean-technology ecosystem. The country hosts advanced capabilities in solar technologies, energy storage, power electronics, digital grid management, and hydrogen-related applications. Their domestic deployment and integration at scale can translate solar expansion into gains in operational flexibility, reduced dependency exposure, and enhanced long-term adaptability.

2.3. Reorienting Natural Gas: Exports, Contract Structures, and Strategic Flexibility

Israel’s offshore natural gas discoveries represented a major structural shift in the country’s energy system, enhancing short-term energy security, generating fiscal revenues, and strengthening regional economic ties. However, the strategic role of natural gas must be reassessed in light of evolving global energy dynamics. Rapid cost declines in solar and energy storage technologies have altered the relative economics of electricity generation, particularly in countries such as Israel that combine high solar irradiation with strong technological capabilities. In this context, the large-scale domestic use of natural gas for baseload electricity generation raises increasing questions about long-term efficiency, flexibility, and exposure to structural risk.

At the global level, uncertainty surrounding future gas demand is substantial. Recent geopolitical developments illustrate the continued strategic importance of natural gas in the short term. Following the sanctions imposed on Russia, liquefied natural gas (LNG) became a critical instrument for maintaining energy security in Europe, with import capacity expanding by approximately 40 billion cubic meters (Bcm) in 2023 and a further 30 Bcm in 2024. At the same time, several institutions, including the International Energy Agency, project a gradual decline in global gas demand beginning in the 2030s as decarbonization policies intensify, particularly in Europe, which represents a potential export market for Israeli gas [25]. Other projections, including those of the US Energy Information Administration, place this inflection point further in the future [26]. These divergent outlooks underscore the presence of deep uncertainty rather than a clear demand trajectory, increasing the value of strategic flexibility in gas monetization decisions.

Within this uncertain window, the timing and structure of gas extraction and exports become critical. Abu-Kalla et al. [27] show that accelerated extraction combined with disciplined reinvestment of revenues, particularly into renewable energy research and development, can improve long-term welfare outcomes. From this perspective, the strategic question is not whether to monetize gas resources, but how to do so in a manner that preserves optionality while limiting long-term lock-in. Floating Liquefied Natural Gas infrastructure offers one such mechanism. Compared to fixed pipelines, FLNG enables geographically flexible exports and reduces dependence on a small number of destination markets, as cargoes can be redirected in response to changing price signals and geopolitical conditions.

A strategy centered on flexible gas exports carries several implications. First, it allows fiscal revenues to be generated while international demand remains sufficiently strong, creating a time-bound opportunity to convert hydrocarbon rents into financial, physical, and technological assets. Israel’s Citizens’ Fund provides an institutional channel for such intertemporal conversion, analogous to sovereign wealth frameworks employed in countries such as Norway and the United Arab Emirates. Second, flexible monetization supports a decoupling of gas exports from domestic electricity system design. Gas revenues can be reinvested in solar generation, storage, grid infrastructure, and human capital, while domestic gas use is progressively reduced. Third, reorienting natural gas extraction away from domestic electricity use and toward exports, particularly through offshore or foreign liquefaction and diversified shipping routes, may also reduce local environmental and health exposures associated with combustion, handling, and transport, while lowering the probability that accidental releases directly affect Israeli coastal areas [28].

At the same time, a degree of domestic gas availability remains relevant for system resilience. Israel’s proved natural gas reserves are equivalent to roughly 50 years of domestic consumption at 2024 demand levels, while current production is allocated approximately equally between exports and local use. In this context, maintaining a strategic reserve equivalent to around 10 to 20 years of domestic consumption could serve as a hedge against regional crises, delays in clean energy deployment, or unexpected technological setbacks. Importantly, such a reserve should be adaptive rather than fixed. It may be reduced if global decarbonization accelerates and gas demand declines faster than anticipated, or expanded if global markets tighten or domestic deployment underperforms. Embedding Strategic Gas Reserve (SGR) clauses into licensing and export contracts would allow production caps and export volumes to adjust dynamically in response to evolving market and security conditions.

The operational implications of such an adaptive reserve framework depend critically on the structure of export arrangements and contractual commitments. While strategic reserves are intended to preserve flexibility under uncertainty, long-term export contracts can either support or constrain this objective depending on their duration, pricing structure, and adjustment clauses. Examining recent export agreements therefore provides a concrete illustration of how gas monetization strategies interact with the ability to implement an adaptive SGR in practice. Recent developments in Israel–Egypt gas relations illustrate both the opportunities and constraints associated with long-term export commitments. In August 2025, the partners of the Leviathan gas field finalized a large export agreement with Egypt, covering up to 130 Bcm of gas between 2026 and 2040. While such arrangements can deliver stable revenues and support regional cooperation, they also entail long-term price and volume commitments that may limit strategic flexibility. From a resilience perspective, extensive reliance on fixed-price, long-duration contracts may increase exposure to unfavorable market shifts relative to more market-linked and diversified export strategies. In addition, greater export flexibility can facilitate regional energy cooperation by enabling Israel to supply transitional fuels to neighboring systems during their own decarbonization processes and may support the emergence of more liquid and market-based gas trading arrangements in the Eastern Mediterranean.

As natural gas transitions from a baseload electricity source toward a complementary and balancing role in a solar-dominated system, market design considerations become increasingly important. Capacity remuneration mechanisms are required to ensure adequate investment in dispatchable and fast-response resources, including batteries, longer-duration storage, and flexible gas-fired generation. Such mechanisms support system reliability during periods of low renewable output without reinforcing structural dependence on gas consumption [29].

Overall, natural gas could evolve from its current role as a dominant baseload source toward a more limited function as a transitional and flexibility resource within the electricity system. In such a configuration, its strategic value would lie in providing optionality, balancing variable renewable generation, and generating revenues that could be reinvested to support a more resilient, low-carbon system, rather than in sustaining long-term domestic electricity production. Framing gas in this way is analytically useful for assessing how alternative strategies differ in terms of dependency exposure, economic vulnerability, and system adaptability in the resilience analysis that follows.

2.4. The Hydrogen Opportunity: Storage, Industry, Fertilizers and System Flexibility

Hydrogen remains a contested component of energy transition strategies, but it is increasingly considered a potential system-level option for electricity systems with high shares of variable renewable energy. Hydrogen can be produced from surplus renewable electricity through electrolysis, stored over extended periods, and later reconverted into electricity or used directly in industry, transport, or heating. Compared with batteries, which primarily address short-term balancing, hydrogen offers medium- to long-duration storage that may help manage seasonal imbalances and enhance system flexibility under prolonged supply stress.

Beyond electricity balancing, hydrogen may support the decarbonization of energy-intensive industrial processes that are difficult to electrify directly, including steel and chemical production. As a chemical feedstock, hydrogen can also be used to produce ammonia via the Haber–Bosch process, with potential implications for fertilizer production and related industrial value chains [30]. Its deployment depends in part on infrastructure compatibility. Evidence from Europe suggests that elements of existing gas transmission and storage networks can be adapted for hydrogen transport and blending, although technical and regulatory constraints remain. Similar adaptations could potentially leverage Israel’s existing gas infrastructure, subject to testing and regulatory adjustments.

Globally, hydrogen occupies a prominent place in long-term energy transition scenarios, although its future scale and cost competitiveness remain uncertain. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) projects that hydrogen and its derivatives could account for a substantial share of global final energy consumption by the mid-21st century under ambitious decarbonization pathways [31]. Several countries, including regional actors such as Saudi Arabia, have announced national hydrogen strategies and large-scale project initiatives. In Israel, research institutions and private firms are active across segments of the hydrogen value chain, including electrolysis, photobiological production, fuel cells, and storage technologies [32]. While these activities remain at an early stage and do not imply near-term large-scale deployment, they may contribute to domestic technological capability and enhance system adaptability under certain transition pathways.

Overall, hydrogen is treated in this study as a contingent option whose relevance depends on cost trajectories, infrastructure development, and system needs. Its potential contribution to storage, industrial decarbonization, and system flexibility is therefore assessed as part of a broader portfolio of resilience strategies rather than as a stand-alone solution.

2.5. Developing Domestic Capabilities in Solar and Energy Storage

The electricity transition is not limited to replacing gas-fired generation with renewable capacity. It also raises questions about technological dependency, industrial capability, and exposure to global supply chains. At present, the global photovoltaic industry is highly concentrated, with China controlling a large share of manufacturing across multiple stages of the value chain. This concentration introduces potential vulnerabilities related to trade disruptions, geopolitical tensions, and supply constraints, which are increasingly relevant in the context of large-scale solar deployment.

In this context, Israel’s interest in developing domestic solar manufacturing capacity is less a matter of self-sufficiency in the narrow sense than of reducing critical dependencies and preserving optionality. Next-generation photovoltaic technologies, including perovskites and flexible thin films, offer potential advantages in this regard. These technologies rely on lower-temperature processes, thinner active layers, and lighter materials than conventional crystalline silicon and can be produced using roll-to-roll manufacturing techniques with substantially lower energy inputs. While these technologies are not yet deployed at scale, they may offer pathways for localized production adapted to smaller markets.

Israel hosts a number of firms and research groups active in these areas, including SolOr, SOLRA-PV, and Apollo Power, which are developing perovskite-based and flexible photovoltaic solutions for applications ranging from building-integrated solar to mobile and off-grid uses. These efforts are supported by a dense academic research base. Ben-Gurion University conducts work on perovskite stability under desert conditions, Bar-Ilan University on tandem cell architectures, the Hebrew University on materials synthesis, the Weizmann Institute on fundamental photophysics, and the Technion on device engineering and scalable deposition. Together, these activities span much of the innovation chain, although significant scale-up challenges remain before industrial deployment could meaningfully contribute to national supply.

Israel also has experience in solar thermal technologies, particularly concentrated solar power with thermal storage. BrightSource Industries, originally developed in Israel, contributed to large-scale CSP deployment at the Ashalim complex in the Negev. While CSP has faced cost and deployment challenges globally, thermal storage integrated with solar generation remains relevant as a firm and dispatchable renewable option, particularly for systems with limited interconnection.

Energy storage represents a parallel dimension of dependency exposure. Batteries are central to renewable integration, especially for Israel, which operates as an electricity island without large-scale cross-border interconnections. However, current lithium-ion technologies rely on imported lithium, cobalt, and nickel, creating long-term strategic risks. In response, a range of alternative storage technologies is being explored domestically. Metal–air batteries, including aluminum–air and zinc–air systems, offer long-duration storage using more abundant materials, and are being developed by Israeli firms such as Phinergy. Flow batteries constitute another option for multi-hour to multi-day storage, with bromine-based systems drawing on Israel’s domestic mineral resources through Israel Chemical Limited (ICL).

Additional storage and flexibility technologies further expand the option space [33]. Pumped-storage hydropower provides multi-hour to multi-day balancing and contingency reserves, with the Gilboa facility already operational and additional capacity under development. Flywheel systems, such as those deployed by Zooz Power, address short-duration balancing and frequency regulation, particularly in applications such as fast electric vehicle charging. Compressed-air energy storage, including underground systems developed by Augwind Energy, offers another pathway for medium- to long-duration storage near demand centers. Thermal energy storage technologies, ranging from molten salts and rock-based systems to ice-based cooling storage, provide flexibility for industrial heat and building-level demand shifting, as illustrated by developments from firms such as Brenmiller Energy and Nostromo Energy. Finally, geothermal energy, where Ormat Technologies is a global leader, represents a firm, low-carbon resource that can complement solar-dominated portfolios while minimizing reliance on critical minerals.

Taken together, these technologies do not imply that Israel can or should rapidly localize all components of its solar and storage systems. Rather, they illustrate the presence of domestic capabilities across multiple segments of the value chain. In the resilience assessment, these capabilities are treated as options that may reduce dependency exposure and enhance adaptability under certain transition strategies, rather than as predetermined outcomes.

2.6. Structural and Institutional Constraints: Bureaucracy and Market Design

The transformation of Israel’s electricity system is shaped not only by technical factors but also by institutional and market structures. The sector remains characterized by a high degree of vertical concentration, with incumbent actors retaining substantial influence over generation, transmission, and distribution. While such configurations were historically common in many electricity systems, most advanced economies have progressively moved toward greater unbundling and competitive market design. In Israel, this transition has been partial, with implications for entry barriers, innovation dynamics, and the participation of new actors.

Concentrated market structures can affect the pace and form of renewable deployment. In particular, they may limit the emergence of decentralized configurations involving municipalities, cooperatives, and independent power producers, which are often central to rooftop solar, community energy, and microgrid development. These institutional features therefore shape the feasible strategy space for electricity system decentralization and resilience.

At the same time, Israel has implemented a substantial set of policies aimed at expanding renewable energy deployment. A large share of the measures included in the national 2030 renewable roadmap are completed or under implementation, including regulatory frameworks for rooftop solar, agrivoltaics, and hybrid solar–storage systems, as well as planning for transmission and distribution upgrades. Grid expansion programs have been approved, real-time grid capacity maps published, storage regulation advanced, and land allocated for ground-mounted photovoltaic installations. These initiatives indicate that regulatory and planning capacity exists, although their coordination and cumulative impact remain uneven.

Despite this progress, administrative and procedural barriers continue to affect deployment timelines. Permitting and grid connection processes for renewable projects involve multiple agencies and sequential approvals, contributing to delays and uncertainty. Land-use classification, particularly for dual-use installations such as agrivoltaics, remains complex, and environmental assessment procedures can be time-consuming even for projects with limited physical footprint. These frictions increase development risk and may disproportionately affect smaller developers and local initiatives.

Market design constitutes a further dimension of structural constraint. Existing market arrangements provide limited scope for dynamic price formation and for the valuation of flexibility services needed in systems with high shares of variable renewable generation. The absence or limited development of day-ahead, intraday, and balancing markets can reduce incentives for demand response, storage, and other flexibility options. International experience suggests that more granular market structures, combined with appropriate financial instruments, can facilitate investment in flexibility and support system resilience.

Financial access also interacts with institutional design. While feed-in tariffs and net metering schemes have supported early renewable adoption, their effectiveness in enabling broad participation may decline as deployment scales. Alternative financing mechanisms, such as dedicated green finance institutions or property-linked investment schemes, have been used in other contexts to lower entry barriers for households, municipalities, and cooperatives, and may influence the distributional and territorial profile of renewable deployment.

Taken together, bureaucratic procedures, market design, and financing arrangements form a set of structural conditions that affect how rapidly renewable, storage, and decentralized solutions can be deployed operationally.

2.7. Harnessing Israel’s Smart Grid Expertise

The integration of intermittent electricity generation into the grid depends critically on digital coordination. Smart grids, understood as electricity networks equipped with real-time monitoring, communication, and control capabilities, enable the balancing of supply and demand across distributed resources. Such systems facilitate local energy trading, demand response, and coordinated storage dispatch, allowing prosumers to adjust consumption and generation in response to price and system signals [23]. Experience from countries such as the United Kingdom and Italy shows that centralized data hubs can support secure data sharing between utilities, consumers, and aggregators, improving fault detection, system stability, and the integration of distributed energy resources.

Empirical evidence suggests that consumer-side flexibility can contribute meaningfully to system balancing when appropriately coordinated. In Italy, local energy communities have optimized distributed resources by enabling behind-the-meter management of loads, effectively transforming demand adjustments into a form of virtual storage. In the United States, aggregators coordinate flexible loads such as water heaters, thermostats, and electric vehicles, monetizing this flexibility through spot markets and financial instruments, with revenues shared among participants [34].

Israel possesses a dense ecosystem of firms and applied research capabilities in smart grid and digital energy technologies. Companies such as mPrest, SolarEdge Technologies, and Contel Smart Energy develop grid software, power electronics, and control platforms, while firms including Driivz, RAD, GridON, SATEC, and Claroty contribute solutions in electric vehicle integration, communications, protection systems, and cybersecurity. These technologies are already deployed internationally and form part of the technical foundation required to manage higher shares of variable renewable generation without compromising system reliability. Their relevance in the present analysis lies in constituting domestic capabilities that can support more adaptive system configurations under certain strategies.

Within the framework developed in this paper, smart grids are treated as a system-wide coordination layer that enhances flexibility under normal operating conditions. Microgrids are then considered as a subsequent, optional layer, adding localized autonomy and failure containment under stress. Grid constraints play a key role in determining when such localized solutions become relevant. In Israel, grid constraints remain a significant factor shaping renewable deployment, particularly in the northern and central regions, despite recent investments and procedural reforms [35].

Microgrids, defined as localized electricity systems capable of operating independently from the central grid, may reduce the need for costly network reinforcement in systems experiencing rapid growth in distributed solar generation. By locally coordinating generation, storage, and consumption, microgrids alleviate pressure on aging infrastructure and help bypass bottlenecks associated with large-scale upgrades.

From a resilience perspective, international experience illustrates how microgrids have been deployed as a risk mitigation strategy in contexts characterized by security risks, geographic fragmentation, or exposure to natural hazards. Taiwan has invested in hardened microgrids to ensure continuity of power supply for critical infrastructure, Japan has developed microgrids in tsunami-prone regions, and parts of California have deployed solar-storage microgrids to support hospitals and schools in wildfire-affected areas. In Israel, similar considerations arise from a combination of terrain complexity, security exposure, and limited interconnection. The Gilboa pilot microgrid provides an illustrative domestic example. Located near the Ma’ale Gilboa community, the project integrates renewable generation, storage, and control systems to enable partial islanded operation during emergencies. While still limited in scale, such pilots inform assessments of how microgrids might contribute to resilience in peripheral regions, including the Negev, the Galilee, and border communities.

Microgrids also interact with local economic structures. Deployment typically involves installation, maintenance, software integration, and ongoing operation at the local level, which may support regional employment and skill development. These effects are context-specific and depend on market design and financing arrangements, but they are relevant to assessments of broader system impacts beyond electricity supply alone.

Cost considerations remain non-trivial. Decentralized configurations involving microgrids and redundant infrastructure often entail higher upfront capital expenditures and operating costs than centralized systems, reflecting the loss of scale economies. Estimates suggest that microgrid installations may require significantly higher investment per unit of capacity. At the same time, several studies identify offsetting benefits through deferred transmission and distribution investments, improved reliability, local economic effects, and environmental gains. For example, Parag and Ainspan [14] estimate that a 10 MW microgrid in Israel could generate net societal benefits exceeding USD 13 million per year when such factors are accounted for.

Finally, the potential scale of distributed solar deployment in Israel is shaped by land and urban constraints. According to the Ministry of Environmental Protection [36] (2020), solar installations on existing structures could realistically reach around 18 GW, corresponding to approximately 46% of current electricity consumption. With projected building development, this capacity could increase to about 24 GW over the coming decade without additional land use, supplying a substantial share of electricity demand even under rising consumption. These estimates underscore the relevance of integrating distributed generation with smart grid and microgrid architectures when evaluating long-term system resilience.

3. Methodology: Qualitative Resilience Assessment Under Deep Uncertainty

3.1. Analytical Approach

The analysis adopts a qualitative resilience assessment framework inspired by the literature on Decision-Making under Deep Uncertainty (DMDU) and scenario-based energy security analysis. DMDU approaches have been directly applied to stress-test energy transition pathways against structurally diverse futures, including technology cost trajectories and demand evolution [10,11]. This approach is appropriate in contexts where future system conditions are shaped by interacting sources of uncertainty that are difficult to quantify probabilistically, including geopolitical risk, security threats, fuel market volatility, trade fragmentation, and non-linear technological change. Under such conditions, optimization based on a single forecast or a narrow set of assumptions may lead to strategies that perform poorly outside their design envelope.

Rather than seeking a cost-optimal solution, the objective of this study is to compare the relative robustness of alternative electricity transition strategies across a set of structurally distinct stress scenarios. Robustness is understood as the ability of a strategy to avoid severe failure modes and economically destabilizing outcomes under a wide range of plausible futures.

The assessment is qualitative and comparative. It relies on documented technical, institutional, and industrial characteristics of Israel’s electricity system described in Section 2, combined with insights from the academic and policy literature. This design avoids false precision while allowing transparent evaluation of trade-offs under deep uncertainty.

3.2. Definition of Strategies

Six electricity transition strategies are defined for the 2035 horizon. They are constructed to reflect realistic policy configurations rather than idealized extremes and are cumulative in nature, with each strategy adding system capabilities or institutional features to the previous one. The purpose of this structure is to isolate the contribution of specific elements such as gas flexibility, digital coordination, decentralization, and domestic industrial capacity to overall system resilience.

Strategy 1: Business-as-Usual (BAU). The BAU strategy represents the continuation of current trends, characterized by a centralized electricity system dominated by natural gas–fired generation, incremental renewable deployment, fixed gas monetization pathways, and limited deployment of advanced digital coordination or decentralized architectures. This strategy serves as a reference case against which alternative configurations are assessed. It reflects a system optimized for short-term cost efficiency under stable conditions, but with limited adaptability to structural shocks.

Strategy 2: Solar Sovereignty (SS). The Solar Sovereignty strategy prioritizes accelerated deployment of solar photovoltaic generation and storage, leveraging Israel’s high solar resource potential and declining technology costs. Natural gas remains part of the system but is primarily retained as residual backup capacity. Grid development follows conventional planning approaches, without systematic deployment of adaptive gas management or advanced smart-grid capabilities. This strategy captures a renewable-led transition focused on domestic energy resources, while retaining a largely centralized system structure.

Strategy 3: Solar Sovereignty with Adaptive Gas Flexibility (SS + GF). This strategy builds on Solar Sovereignty by explicitly redefining the role of natural gas. The strategy includes an adaptive SGR and flexible gas monetization mechanisms, including floating liquefied natural gas infrastructure. The rationale is to preserve optionality under uncertain global gas demand trajectories, reduce stranded-asset risk, and maintain domestic security of supply without locking the electricity system into high gas dependence.

Strategy 4: SS + Gas Flexibility + Smart Grids. The fourth strategy adds advanced smart-grid capabilities to the previous configuration. These include digital monitoring and control, dynamic pricing, demand response, coordinated storage dispatch, and aggregation of distributed energy resources. The rationale for introducing smart grids is to enhance operational adaptability and enable higher penetration of variable renewables without compromising reliability. Smart grids also allow partial substitution of physical capacity with informational and behavioral flexibility.

Strategy 5: SS + Gas Flexibility + Smart Grids + Microgrids. This strategy introduces widespread deployment of microgrids for critical infrastructure, peripheral regions, and security-sensitive areas. Microgrids enable islanded operation, failure containment, and faster recovery in the event of disruptions affecting centralized infrastructure. The rationale is to address vulnerabilities associated with concentration and to enhance resilience under security shocks and extreme events. This strategy represents a shift from purely centralized optimization toward a more modular system architecture.

Strategy 6: SS + Gas Flexibility + Smart Grids + Microgrids + Domestic Capability. The final strategy incorporates domestic clean-technology and industrial capabilities, including solar manufacturing, energy storage technologies, grid software, cybersecurity, hydrogen-related applications, and supporting research infrastructure. The rationale is not self-sufficiency in a narrow sense but reduction in dependency exposure and improved adaptability under trade disruptions or technological shifts. This strategy reflects the potential role of domestic capabilities as a resilience multiplier increasing the range of feasible responses and speed of adaptation under adverse conditions.

3.3. Definition of Stress Scenarios

Strategies are evaluated across six non-redundant stress scenarios designed to capture salient sources of uncertainty affecting Israel’s electricity system. Scenarios are intentionally qualitative and are not assigned probabilities. Their purpose is to test strategy performance under structurally different conditions rather than to forecast specific futures.

Scenario 1: Gas Market Tightening. This scenario assumes high and volatile gas prices due to geopolitical tensions, supply constraints, or delayed investment. It tests exposure to fuel price shocks and the ability to maintain electricity supply without excessive cost escalation.

Scenario 2: Low Gas Prices and Stranded-Asset Risk. In this scenario, global decarbonization accelerates under the effect of policy changes and gas demand weakens, leading to low prices and reduced utilization of gas infrastructure. The scenario evaluates exposure to stranded assets, fiscal risk, and misallocation of capital. In S2, resilience reflects not only the ability to avoid stranded assets, but also the capacity to redeploy capital, skills, and supply chains toward expanding clean-technology sectors.

Scenario 3: Trade and Supply-Chain Fragmentation. This scenario reflects disruptions in global trade affecting the availability of photovoltaic components, batteries, critical minerals, or digital equipment. It tests dependency exposure and the value of domestic capabilities and diversified supply options.

Scenario 4: Security Shock. The security-shock scenario assumes physical or cyber disruptions affecting centralized generation, transmission, or gas infrastructure. It assesses failure containment, recovery speed, and continuity of service for critical loads.

Scenario 5: Demand Surge. This scenario assumes rapid growth in electricity demand driven by electrification, increased data and AI-related loads, climate-induced cooling needs, or population growth due, in particular, to immigration shocks (aliyah) triggered by political instability abroad. It tests the ability of the system to scale capacity, manage peak demand, and adjust investment pathways under sustained demand pressure.

Scenario 6: Clean-Technology Breakthrough. This scenario assumes faster-than-expected cost declines or performance improvements in solar, storage, hydrogen, or digital technologies. It evaluates whether strategies are able to capture upside opportunities or remain locked into legacy configurations. Although Scenarios 2 and 6 both affect the relative attractiveness of gas and clean technologies, they are analytically distinct: the former reflects a demand and policy-driven downside risk for gas assets, while the latter captures supply-side technological upside and tests the system’s ability to adapt without lock-in.

3.4. Principles Guiding the Qualitative Assessment

The resilience matrices are constructed through a structured qualitative assessment rather than through quantitative simulations or cost optimization. This choice reflects the presence of deep uncertainty affecting key drivers of system performance, including security risks, geopolitical dynamics, fuel markets, trade relations, and technological change. Under such conditions, assigning probabilities or precise numerical values would introduce a false sense of precision.

Each cell of the matrix corresponds to the performance of a given strategy under a specific stress scenario, evaluated along one resilience dimension. Scores are assigned using an anchored ordinal scale ranging from very low to very high resilience. The operational meaning of each level is defined in Section 3.6 to ensure consistency across scenarios and strategies.

The assessment follows three guiding principles. First, scores are relative, not absolute. A strategy is not evaluated in isolation, but in comparison to alternative configurations facing the same scenario. This ensures internal consistency across the matrix. Second, scores are grounded in system characteristics documented in Section 2. These include the degree of centralization, fuel mix, infrastructure redundancy, digital coordination capabilities, domestic industrial capacity, and institutional arrangements. No score is assigned without an explicit linkage to one or more of these characteristics. Third, worst-case exposure matters more than average performance. In line with the resilience perspective adopted in this paper, strategies that exhibit severe vulnerabilities under a given scenario are penalized, even if they perform well under other conditions.

3.5. Filling the Matrices: Logic by Criterion

Security of supply. For security of supply, scores reflect the ability of each strategy to maintain electricity delivery under stress, contain failures, and recover rapidly. Centralized strategies with limited redundancy receive low scores under security shocks, while decentralized configurations with microgrids, islanding capability, and digital coordination receive higher scores. Demand response and storage are treated as substitutes for peak capacity where operationally credible.

Dependency exposure. Dependency exposure captures reliance on external fuels, imported technologies, and concentrated infrastructure. Strategies heavily dependent on gas imports, fixed export infrastructure, or foreign supply chains score poorly under trade fragmentation and gas market shocks. Strategies incorporating domestic renewable generation, diversified gas monetization, and local technological capabilities score higher, even when full self-sufficiency is not assumed.

Economic vulnerability. Economic vulnerability reflects exposure to price volatility, stranded assets, fiscal instability, and forced policy reversals. Strategies involving large irreversible investments in gas infrastructure score poorly under low-demand or decarbonization scenarios. Flexible strategies that allow scaling, deferral, or repurposing of assets receive higher scores, as they limit downside risk while preserving upside potential.

3.6. Anchoring the Scoring Scale

To ensure transparency, each qualitative level on the five-point scale is associated with explicit system properties.

• Very low resilience corresponds to configurations where the strategy fails to ensure continuity of supply, exhibits high exposure to external dependencies, or generates economically destabilizing outcomes under the scenario considered.
• Low resilience indicates significant vulnerabilities that would require emergency interventions or costly adjustments.
• Medium resilience reflects partial adaptability, where the system can cope with stress but at the cost of efficiency losses or increased risk.
• High resilience corresponds to configurations that absorb shocks with limited disruption and manageable economic impacts.
• Very high resilience corresponds to strategies that combine redundancy, flexibility, and low dependency exposure, enabling both failure containment and rapid adaptation.

These anchors are applied consistently across all scenarios and strategies.

3.7. From Individual Matrices to Overall Resilience

Rather than aggregating scores numerically, overall resilience is assessed using dominance rules. A strategy is considered weakly robust if it exhibits low or very low resilience in any dimension under a given scenario. Conversely, strategies that avoid severe vulnerabilities across all dimensions and scenarios are considered strongly robust.

This approach reflects the non-compensatory nature of resilience: strong performance in one dimension cannot offset critical failure in another.

3.8. Scoring Procedure and Internal Validation

The qualitative scoring was conducted through a structured expert assessment process conducted by the two authors, both with domain expertise in energy systems, electricity markets, and risk analysis. The evaluation followed a pre-defined scoring protocol consisting of three steps.

First, for each strategy–scenario–dimension cell, we identified the dominant failure mode activated by the scenario (e.g., fuel price exposure under gas tightening; outage propagation under security shock; stranded-asset risk under policy-driven gas decline).

Second, we assessed the presence or absence of specific resilience-enabling system properties defined ex ante in Section 3.2 (e.g., redundancy, modularity, substitutability, domestic supply capability, digital coordination).

Third, we assigned ordinal scores (Very Low to Very High) based on anchored definitions linking qualitative levels to observable system characteristics rather than subjective impressions. Each score required explicit written justification linking the strategy configuration to the scenario stressor and to one or more resilience properties described in Section 3.2.

To enhance internal consistency, scoring was conducted independently for each resilience dimension (security, dependency, economic) before cross-comparison across strategies. Discrepancies were resolved through iterative discussion and explicit documentation of the dominant vulnerability logic. While the assessment remains qualitative and expert-based, the structured protocol, anchored scale, and non-compensatory aggregation rule enhance procedural transparency and replicability.

4. Results: Construction of the Resilience Matrices

The resilience assessment shows that system vulnerabilities emerge primarily through scenario-specific failure modes, and that successive policy layers address these failures in a cumulative manner (

Table 1. Resilience with respect to the security of supply dimension across strategies and stress scenarios. Resilience levels are assessed qualitatively on a five-point ordinal scale (Very Low, Low, Medium, High, Very High). Scores reflect relative performance across strategies under each stress scenario and criterion. S1–S6 correspond to the stress scenarios defined in Section 3.

Strategy	S1	S2	S3	S4	S5	S6
BAU	Very Low	Low	Low	Low	Low	Medium
Solar Sovereignty (SS)	High	Medium	Medium	Medium	Medium	High
SS + Adaptive Gas Flexibility	High	Medium	Medium	Medium	High	High
SS + GF + Smart Grids	High	High	High	Medium	High	Very High
SS + GF + Smart Grids + Microgrids	Very High	High	High	High	High	Very High
SS + Full Domestic Capability	Very High	Very High	High	High	Very High	Very High

,

Table 2. Resilience with respect to dependency dimension across strategies and stress scenarios.

Strategy	S1	S2	S3	S4	S5	S6
BAU	Very Low	Low	Very Low	Low	Low	Very Low
Solar Sovereignty (SS)	High	Medium	Medium	Medium	Medium	High
SS + Adaptive Gas Flexibility	High	Medium	Medium	Medium	Medium	High
SS + GF + Smart Grids	High	High	High	High	Medium	Very High
SS + GF + Smart Grids + Microgrids	Very High	High	High	High	High	Very High
SS + Full Domestic Capability	Very High	Very High	Very High	High	High	Very High

,

Table 3. Resilience with respect to the economic dimension across strategies and stress scenarios.

Strategy	S1	S2	S3	S4	S5	S6
BAU	Very Low	Very Low	Low	Low	Low	Very Low
Solar Sovereignty (SS)	High	Medium	Medium	Medium	Medium	High
SS + Adaptive Gas Flexibility	High	High	Medium	Medium	High	High
SS + GF + Smart Grids	High	High	High	Medium	High	Very High
SS + GF + Smart Grids + Microgrids	Very High	High	High	High	High	Very High
SS + Full Domestic Capability	Very High	Very High	High	High	Very High	Very High

and

Table 4. Overall Robustness of Energy System Strategies under Deep Uncertainty. Robustness scores are qualitative and ordinal. Scenario-level robustness reflects the weakest performance across security, dependency, and economic dimensions. Overall robustness corresponds to the weakest scenario outcome.

Strategy	Overall Robustness	Explanation (Non-Compensatory Assessment)
BAU (gas-centric, centralized)	Very low	Exhibits critical failure modes under multiple scenarios, including security shocks, demand surges, and gas market tightening once domestic reserves are insufficient; weaknesses in any one dimension dominate outcomes.
Solar Sovereignty (SS)	Medium	Reduces exposure to fuel risks but remains vulnerable under security shocks and trade fragmentation due to centralized grid architecture and reliance on imported components.
SS + Adaptive Gas Flexibility	Medium	Avoids severe economic and supply failures by preserving fuel optionality and reducing stranded-asset risk, but still exhibits limitations under security shocks, extreme demand growth and prolonged fragmentation.
SS + Gas Flexibility + Smart Grids	Medium	Eliminates major operational and economic failure modes through digital coordination and demand response, yet peak stress under security supply shock or extreme demand growth remains a binding constraint.
SS + Gas Flexibility + Smart Grids + Microgrids	High	Avoids critical failures across all scenarios by combining flexibility with decentralized architectures that enable local failure containment and scalable adaptation.
SS + Full Domestic Capability	High	Demonstrates the strongest robustness by limiting dependency exposure, reducing economic lock-in, and enabling rapid adaptation under both adverse shocks and favorable technological change.

). The analysis highlights how different stress scenarios activate distinct structural weaknesses, which are progressively mitigated as additional flexibility, decentralization, and adaptability are introduced.

Under gas-market tightening (S1), vulnerabilities arise when domestic gas reserves are no longer sufficient to cover electricity demand and the system must rely on imported gas at high and volatile prices (Table 1). In this context, the business-as-usual configuration performs poorly due to its continued reliance on gas-fired generation and the absence of short-term substitutes. Expanding solar generation reduces exposure to fuel constraints by substituting domestic energy for gas, while adaptive gas-flexibility policies further improve resilience by preserving dispatchable capacity and avoiding rigid extraction or export commitments. Smart-grid capabilities and microgrids then reinforce resilience by improving peak management and allowing localized continuity of service even when upstream supply constraints become binding.

Under policy-driven gas-demand decline (S2), failure does not stem from supply shortages but from economic rigidities and stranded assets (Table 3). Gas-centric strategies remain tied to declining utilization of fuel-dependent infrastructure, whereas solar-based configurations reduce exposure by decoupling system performance from fuel demand. Adaptive gas policies mitigate economic disruption by allowing production and exports to adjust dynamically, including more aggressive monetization of gas reserves when a sustained decline in long-term demand becomes apparent, thereby reducing stranded-asset risk. Digital coordination and decentralized architectures enable smoother system reconfiguration by allowing assets to be redeployed incrementally through demand response, storage dispatch, and local control, rather than requiring abrupt, system-wide adjustments. Strategies incorporating domestic industrial capability achieve higher resilience in this scenario by enabling faster reorientation of investment, supply chains, and labor toward emerging clean technologies, thereby capturing a greater share of the economic upside from structural demand shifts rather than merely limiting downside risk.

Under trade fragmentation (S3), vulnerabilities arise from dependence on imported fuels, equipment, and centralized infrastructure (Table 2). While solar deployment lowers fuel-import exposure, reliance on foreign photovoltaic components and storage technologies continues to create supply-chain risks. Smart grids improve resilience in this scenario by increasing operational flexibility and enabling more efficient use of existing distributed resources through demand response, dynamic pricing, and coordinated storage dispatch. These capabilities reduce the need for immediate infrastructure expansion and allow partial substitution between available generation, storage, and demand-side resources when equipment imports are constrained. Microgrids further strengthen resilience by enabling localized control and reducing reliance on centralized infrastructure. Domestic industrial capabilities provide an additional resilience layer by anchoring key technologies, maintenance capacity, and learning effects within national borders.

Under security shocks (S4), the dominant failure mode is the propagation of outages through centralized systems (Table 1). Business-as-usual configurations are particularly exposed, as disruptions affecting generation or transmission rapidly cascade across the network. Solar deployment alone does not fundamentally alter this risk. By contrast, digital monitoring, automated response, and demand-side flexibility reduce outage duration, while microgrids decisively improve resilience by enabling islanding and local failure containment.

Under rapid demand surges (S5), failure arises from insufficient flexibility and peak capacity (Table 1, Table 2 and Table 3). Centralized systems struggle to scale quickly, while solar-heavy configurations face peak-management challenges during periods of low generation. Smart-grid solutions improve utilization of existing assets through load shifting and demand response, but they do not eliminate dependence on centralized capacity expansion, which remains a constraint under sustained demand growth. Adaptive gas flexibility, storage deployment, and decentralized resources progressively reduce peak stress and allow capacity to scale more modularly, explaining the higher resilience scores of strategies incorporating microgrids and domestic capability. Strategies incorporating microgrids and domestic industrial capability achieve higher resilience in this scenario by reducing reliance on imported equipment and long global supply chains, enabling faster deployment of generation, storage, and grid assets when demand accelerates. This capacity to scale infrastructure rapidly and domestically explains the higher resilience score relative to strategies relying on microgrids alone.

Finally, under clean-technology breakthroughs (S6), vulnerability is driven by technological lock-in and slow asset turnover (Table 1, Table 2 and Table 3). Gas-centric strategies capture limited upside from innovation, whereas solar-based systems benefit directly. Smart grids, modular architectures, and domestic technological capability amplify these gains by enabling rapid integration, local learning, and the capture of innovation rents.

Across all scenarios, resilience improves consistently as strategies move from centralized and rigid configurations toward flexible, decentralized, and modular systems (Table 4 and

Table 5. Ranking of Highly Robust Strategies (Tie-break Analysis). When strategies share the same overall robustness level under the non-compensatory rule, they are further distinguished by their robustness margin, which captures how often a strategy performs well above the minimum threshold. Although both strategies avoid critical failures across scenarios, the inclusion of domestic industrial capability produces a thicker resilience buffer, making it the more robust configuration overall.

Strategy	Overall Robustness (Non-Compensatory)	Robustness Margin (Very High Scores)	Relative Robustness
SS + GF + Smart Grids + Microgrids	High	6/18	High
SS + Full Domestic Capability	High	12/18	Higher

). Instead of optimizing for a single expected future, layered strategies limit downside risk across adverse scenarios while preserving upside potential under favorable technological and market developments.

5. Discussion

5.1. Key Insights from the Resilience Assessment

The resilience assessment reveals a consistent pattern across scenarios and dimensions: vulnerabilities emerge through scenario-specific failure modes, and layered strategies address these failures cumulatively. Strategies that target only a narrow set of risks or optimize for a single future systematically underperform configurations that combine flexibility, decentralization, and adaptability.

Centralized, gas-centric configurations are fragile under deep uncertainty, even when they perform adequately under stable conditions. Their weaknesses stem less from inefficiency than from structural rigidity, exposure to fuel depletion or price volatility, and limited ability to contain failures or adapt to rapid change. These vulnerabilities recur across scenarios involving market stress, security disruptions, and technological shifts.

Solar deployment improves resilience by reducing exposure to fuel constraints but does not, on its own, eliminate systemic fragilities. Without complementary flexibility and coordination mechanisms, high solar penetration can exacerbate peak stress or operational risk. This explains why solar sovereignty strategies outperform business-as-usual but do not achieve the highest resilience across all scenarios.

The analysis highlights the importance of optionality and modularity. Adaptive gas flexibility, smart grids, microgrids, and domestic industrial capability do not merely add capacity; they transform system response to shocks. Each layer reduces the likelihood that a single constraint becomes binding, leading to systematic improvements in resilience as strategies become more diversified and decentralized.

Smart grids and digital coordination are critical but insufficient on their own. They improve utilization of existing assets and reduce operational stress, but do not eliminate dependence on centralized capacity expansion under sustained demand growth. This limitation becomes evident under rapid demand surges, where only strategies combining digital coordination with decentralized capacity can scale quickly without creating new dependency bottlenecks. Microgrids emerge as a decisive resilience layer under security shocks, not by increasing total generation, but by altering failure propagation. Islanding and local control convert system-wide outages into contained disruptions, a capability absent from centralized architectures.

A key distinction emerges between damage limitation and value capture. Some strategies primarily limit downside risk by preventing outages or stranded assets, while others also enable the system to capture upside opportunities under favorable developments, such as clean-technology breakthroughs or structural demand growth. This distinction explains the superior performance of strategies incorporating domestic industrial capability under transition-driven scenarios.

Overall, resilience appears cumulative rather than substitutive. Each policy layer addresses a distinct class of vulnerabilities, and removing any one layer re-exposes the system to specific failure modes. This supports a portfolio-based approach in which flexibility, decentralization, and domestic capability are treated as complements.

5.2. Methodological Considerations and Limitations

The analysis relies on qualitative, ordinal scoring rather than quantitative optimization. This choice reflects both data limitations and the nature of long-term energy transitions, where key drivers such as technology costs, geopolitical conditions, and policy trajectories evolve under deep uncertainty and are difficult to represent through precise numerical modeling.

Several limitations nevertheless merit consideration.

First, the scoring process relies on expert judgment and therefore retains a degree of subjectivity, although internal consistency was maintained through the use of anchored scoring criteria and a structured evaluation protocol. More broadly, the framework is designed to compare the relative robustness of alternative strategies rather than to estimate optimal investment levels or expected outcomes. Accordingly, scenarios are not assigned explicit probabilities; instead, they are used to test the performance of strategies across structurally different futures.

Second, the resilience layers identified in the analysis should be interpreted as analytical building blocks rather than automatically complementary policy instruments. In practice, interaction effects may arise between policy layers. For example, maintaining excessive gas flexibility could slow investment in renewable integration, while domestic industrial capability could create technological path dependencies if local innovation diverges from global technological trajectories. Similarly, additional redundancy through microgrids may yield diminishing resilience gains relative to cost and system complexity. The effectiveness of layered strategies depends on governance capacity, technological maturity, and the scale and sequencing of policy implementation. Resilience improvements therefore require adaptive policy design capable of adjusting investment priorities as system conditions evolve. In practice, this implies maintaining institutional flexibility in areas such as gas export commitments, storage deployment, grid reinforcement, and decentralized infrastructure development, allowing policymakers to recalibrate the relative roles of gas, solar, storage, and distributed resources as technological and market conditions change. Such flexibility is particularly important in contexts where long-lived infrastructure investments may otherwise create structural lock-in. Future research could further examine these interaction effects and potential scale trade-offs using hybrid qualitative and quantitative approaches that combine resilience-oriented scenario analysis with system modeling.

Finally, the analysis deliberately abstracts from detailed fiscal affordability, public–private cost allocation, and financing mechanisms. While different electricity transition strategies imply distinct investment profiles and fiscal exposures, assessing budgetary feasibility and financing structures would require a dedicated quantitative analysis drawing on detailed financial and regulatory data. Such an assessment falls outside the scope of the present paper.

5.3. Policy Relevance and Transferability

Although grounded in the Israeli energy system, many insights are transferable to other energy-island systems, gas/solar-rich countries, and regions exposed to security or geopolitical risks. Japan provides a relevant comparison. While much larger than Israel, it shares key structural characteristics, including technological sophistication, limited domestic energy resources, and exposure to external supply risks. In both countries, nuclear energy presents significant constraints—due to seismic risk in Japan, as illustrated by the Fukushima accident, and to geopolitical and security considerations in Israel. Natural gas also plays a central role in both systems, although under different configurations: Israel relies on domestic offshore reserves, whereas Japan depends heavily on imported liquefied natural gas from global markets. These similarities highlight common challenges related to supply security, infrastructure vulnerability, and the need for flexible and resilient system design.

More broadly, our findings align with resilience engineering and network theory, which highlight how layered and decentralized architectures limit failure propagation and enhance adaptive capacity under uncertainty, properties that have been increasingly emphasized in the analysis of power systems and energy infrastructures [37].

At the same time, some elements—such as domestic industrial capability or gas monetization—are context-specific and reflect Israel’s institutional and resource endowment. The framework can nevertheless be adapted to other settings by adjusting scenarios, strategies, and institutional assumptions.

6. Conclusions

This paper examined the resilience of alternative electricity system strategies for Israel under deep uncertainty, using a qualitative, scenario-based framework that emphasizes failure avoidance, adaptability, and robustness rather than single-scenario optimization. The analysis shows that system vulnerabilities emerge through distinct failure modes depending on market, security, and technological conditions, and that no single policy instrument is sufficient to address all of them.

For Israel, the results highlight the structural limitations of centralized, gas-centric configurations in a context characterized by geopolitical risk, finite domestic gas resources, and accelerating technological change. While natural gas has contributed significantly to energy security in the past, strategies that rely on it as a long-term backbone exhibit increasing fragility under scenarios involving market tightening, demand shifts, or technological disruption. Expanding solar generation substantially improves resilience by reducing exposure to fuel constraints, but its full potential is realized only when combined with flexibility mechanisms, decentralized architectures, and adaptive policy instruments.

More broadly, the analysis demonstrates that resilience improves cumulatively as systems move toward greater modularity, decentralization, and optionality. Smart grids, microgrids, adaptive gas policies, and domestic industrial capability each address distinct classes of vulnerability, and their combination consistently outperforms partial or single-layer approaches. In particular, strategies that preserve the ability to reconfigure assets, redeploy capital and skills, and scale capacity incrementally prove more robust across adverse and favorable futures alike.

Beyond the Israeli case, these findings are relevant for other energy-island systems and countries facing high uncertainty regarding fuel markets, security conditions, and technology trajectories. The proposed framework offers a transparent and transferable approach for comparing energy strategies when probabilistic forecasts are unreliable and long-term system adaptability is a central policy objective. Instead of identifying a single optimal pathway, it supports the design of layered strategies that limit downside risk while preserving upside potential in an uncertain energy transition.