The residents of this village in the Negev desert have everything they need to build a solar-panel field: construction permits and loans, a contract with a company to build the field, and plenty of sun. But Tarabin village doesn’t yet have permission from the government to sell its solar power to the national grid—a crucial prerequisite for making the project economical. Dozens of communities across Israel are in the same situation, and executives and backers of the solar industry here are blaming an unlikely culprit: natural gas. Two big offshore gas finds in 2009 and 2010 shifted priorities and resources away from solar projects, they say. Shortly after, the government stopped approving the hookup of new solar projects to the grid. That has left villages like Tarabin waiting. It has also devastated the small, once-promising solar-power industry here. The proposed site for the field outside of town here […]