Market brief
Israel
The authorities that procure water infrastructure in Israel, how the deals are put together, and what is in the pipeline.
Reference profile for IsraelMarket snapshot
The commercial picture in Israel: the scale of the economy and the water sector, the investment climate, and where the near-term activity is concentrated.
Political stability
World Bank Governance Indicators, 2024. Percentile among all countries; higher is more stable.
Investment climate
World Bank Governance Indicators, 2024. Regulatory quality for private investment; higher is better.
Financing & PPP
- PPP frameworkMature (desalination BOT model)
- Tracked pipelineUS$ 4.1 bn in our projects register
- Active fundersCommercial project finance, Institutional investors
- Climate adaptation planAdopted (2021)
Opportunities
- Desalination technology export
- Reuse (>85% of wastewater reused)
- Digital water
Key challenges
- Energy intensity of desalination
- Brine management
- Aquifer protection
Sources: Israel Water Authority, February 2025 (2023 supply, balance and non-revenue water). Population and GDP: World Bank. Governance indicators: World Bank Worldwide Governance Indicators (2024).
Contracting authorities
The bodies that commission, regulate and operate water infrastructure in Israel. Ministries set policy and sign the offtake; utilities run the assets; regulators set the tariff and the service standard.
- Ministry of Energy & InfrastructureMinistry
- Ministry of Environmental ProtectionMinistry
- Israel Water AuthorityRegulator
- Municipal Water & Sewage CorporationsUtility
- IDE TechnologiesEPC & technology
- MekorotBulk producer
How deals are structured
The framework in Israel is Mature (desalination BOT model), the schemes we track carry US$ 4.1 bn of disclosed value, and the funders most active in the sector are Commercial project finance, Institutional investors.
Delivery splits by asset class across the region: dams and trunk conveyance are mostly engineering contracts carried by sovereign or development-bank finance; bulk supply increasingly uses build-operate-transfer concessions against a long-term offtake; and distribution work is let as performance-based contracts paid against measured leakage reduction. The Finance & Economics hub sets out each model and where it has been used.
The projects register bears this out. Of the 13 tracked schemes in Israel, 3 name a concession structure in the finance note; the rest record only where the money came from, which is not the same as saying they were not concessions.
How to bid
Israel has run its desalination fleet on state build-operate-transfer tenders through an inter-ministerial committee of the finance and energy ministries and the Water Authority.2 In June 2026 it opened a second door: the government approved a long-term plan under which private companies may develop plants of at least 100 million cubic metres a year, subject to the Water Authority, the energy minister and a planning recommendation, against a target of 2.3 billion cubic metres a year by 2050.1
| Procuring body | An inter-ministerial desalination tenders committee: the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Energy and the Water Authority.2 |
|---|---|
| Contract form and term | Finance, design, construction and operation under a concession. The Western Galilee plant runs 25 years beyond the project term.2 |
| New private route | From June 2026, a promoter may develop a plant of at least 100 million cubic metres a year with three approvals. No regulations, fee schedule or application window have been published.1 |
| Price benchmark | The number to bid against is not the household bill. Mekorot charges local suppliers ILS 1.17/m³ within the recognised quantity and ILS 7.14 above it, excluding VAT; the household bill of ILS 8.508 and 15.623 includes sewage and VAT.34 |
The reference award predates the current window: the Western Galilee plant, Israel’s first in the north, went to IDE Technologies on 14 November 2022 at about ILS 1.5 billion for 100 million cubic metres a year.2 What could not be established: the named offtake counterparty on the state tenders, the foreign ownership position, dispute forum and tax treatment. The relevant government pages block automated reading, so the tariff figures here come from the regulation schedule as reproduced by the farmers’ federation.
Regulatory intelligence
| Regulation | Status | Year | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Water Law | In force | 1959 | All water state-owned; licensing and pricing authority. |
| Desalination BOT framework | Active | 2000s– | Competitive concessions; new plants contracted. |
| Reuse standards (Inbar/Yuval committees) | In force | 2010 | Effluent quality classes for unrestricted irrigation. |
| Israel–Jordan treaty Annex II + sales | In force | 1994– | Allocations plus expanding commercial transfers. |
| Oslo II Article 40 | Frozen | 1995 | Interim Palestinian allocations; JWC largely dormant. |
Primary reference: the Israel Water Authority; cross-border arrangements remain politically contingent.
Projects
Tracked schemes in Israel, largest first. Each has its own page with the parties, the finance and a dated history.
13 tracked in total. The full set, filterable, is in the major projects register.
Track record
What has actually been signed in Israel, from the awards log and the major projects register.
Disclosed value by year
US$ bn of tracked awards in Israel carrying a published value
1 further awards in this sector carry no published value and are not in the chart.
| Year | Project | Winning firms | US$ m |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Western Galilee Desalination (Birkat Miriam) | IDE Technologies | n/a |
| 2022 on line | National Carrier Flow Reversal (Reverse Water Carrier) | EMS, Mekorot's implementation arm | 290 |
| 2020 on line | Sorek 2 Desalination | IDE Technologies | 540 |
| 2010 on line | Hadera Desalination | H2ID | 430 |
| 2009 on line | Sorek 1 Desalination | IDE Technologies | 400 |
| 2005 on line | Ashkelon Desalination | VID Desalination Company | 270 |
Years without a label are award years from the curated log; rows marked on line are dated by commissioning, from the projects register. 6 rows in total for Israel.
Repeat winners
- IDE Technologies3 tracked awards
Firms or consortia appearing on two or more tracked awards in Israel.
Pipeline & tenders
Structured procurements and live tenders in Israel, drawn from the same review that maintains the pipeline tracker.
Pipeline & awards
Tenders
Prices
What households pay
| Household tariff (US$/m³) | Cost of supply (US$/m³) | Year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| $2.30 / $4.22 | $0.82 | 2026 | January 2026 tariff regulations as reproduced by the farmers’ federation; Davar for the increase |
ILS 8.508/m³ for the recognised household quantity and ILS 15.623 above it, including VAT, from 1 January 2026: those are water and sewage combined. Water alone is ILS 4.54 and 11.65/m³, and Mekorot charges local suppliers ILS 1.17 and 7.14/m³ excluding VAT, which is the leg a desalination bidder benchmarks against. The full average cost of fresh water for agriculture is ILS 3.02/m³.
Residential tariffs, and the cost of supply where a utility publishes it, are kept in one place for the whole region so the comparison holds: a tariff means little without the cost it is measured against.
Watch list
No dated items have been carried forward for Israel yet. This section fills from the monthly briefings as they are published.
Sources
9 references
Project, pipeline and tender records are compiled from procurer announcements, lender disclosures and trade reporting; each project page carries its own source and the date it was last checked. Institutions are from the decision-maker directory. Economic and water indicators are cited on the reference profile.
- The Jerusalem Post, on the government’s long-term plan for desalination, 8 June 2026.
- IDE Technologies, award of the Western Galilee desalination plant, 14 November 2022.
- Mayim LeYisrael, water tariff update for agriculture and households, January 2026, reproducing the regulation schedule.
- Davar, on the 2.35% tariff rise from 1 January, 18 December 2025.
- FAO, AQUASTAT — Global Information System on Water and Agriculture: country water resources, withdrawals by sector and dam register. fao.org/aquastat. Latest country values as compiled at build.
- World Bank, World Development Indicators and country water-sector reporting. data.worldbank.org.
- Kaufmann & Kraay, Worldwide Governance Indicators (World Bank), 2024 update — political-stability and regulatory-quality scores, 0–100, shown in the market snapshot. worldbank.org/wgi.
- World Resources Institute, Aqueduct 4.0 Water Risk Atlas (2023) — the sub-basin risk, stress and groundwater-decline layers on the interactive maps. wri.org/aqueduct.
- MENA Water Review major projects register and PPP pipeline — compiled from procurer publications, development-bank project pages and trade reporting; each record names its source.
Numbered references are linked from the superscript markers in the text. Figures without a marker come from the sources above as compiled in the site methodology.