Photovoltaic arrays at the Israeli National Solar Energy Center

Zin Valley in the Negev Desert of Israel

The use of

solar energy Solar energy is the radiant energy from the Sun's sunlight, light and heat, which can be harnessed using a range of technologies such as solar electricity, solar thermal energy (including solar water heating) and solar architecture. It is a ...

began in

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

in the 1950s with the development by Levi Yissar of a solar water heater to address the energy shortages that plagued the new country.Petrotyranny by John C. Bacher, David Suzuki, published by Dundurn Press Ltd., 2000; Page 7

/ref> By 1967 around 5% of water of households were solar heated and 50,000 solar heaters had been sold. With the 1973 oil crisis, 1970s oil crisis, Harry Zvi Tabor developed the prototype of the solar water heater now used in over 90% of Israeli homes.At the Zenith of Solar Energy
Neal Sandler, ''

Bloomberg BusinessWeek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'' (and before that ''Business Week'' and ''The Business Week''), is an American monthly business magazine published 12 times a year. The magazine debuted in New York City in Septembe ...

'', 26 March 2008. There are over 1.3 million solar water heaters installed as a result of mandatory

solar water heating Solar water heating (SWH) is water heating, heating water by sunlight, using a solar thermal collector. A variety of configurations are available at varying cost to provide solutions in different climates and latitudes. SWHs are widely used for ...

regulations. Israeli engineers have been at the cutting edge of solar energy technologyIsrael Pushes Solar Energy Technology
Linda Gradstein, NPR, 22 October 2007. and its solar companies work on projects around the world.Looking to the sun
Tom Parry,

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (), branded as CBC/Radio-Canada, is the Canadian Public broadcasting, public broadcaster for both radio and television. It is a Crown corporation that serves as the national public broadcaster, with its E ...

, 15 August 2007. However, even though Israeli engineers have been involved in both photovoltaic and concentrated solar power, the earliest Israeli companies which have become market leaders in their respective fields have all been involved in concentrated solar power. Some notable examples of this are BrightSource, Solel and Brenmiller Energy which all deal with utility scale projects. Additionally, Herzliya based

SolarEdge SolarEdge Technologies, Inc. is an Israeli company that developed a DC optimized inverter system. In 2023, SolarEdge became the most losing stock in the S&P 500 for the year, which resulted in its delisting from the index. On June 25th 2024, So ...

has become a market leader in inverters for non-utility scale

photovoltaic Photovoltaics (PV) is the conversion of light into electricity using semiconducting materials that exhibit the photovoltaic effect, a phenomenon studied in physics, photochemistry, and electrochemistry. The photovoltaic effect is commercially ...

solar power. In 2009, Israel found natural gas reserves within their exclusive economic zone which may reduce urgency of solar development. Solar technology in Israel has advanced to the point where it is almost cost-competitive with

fossil fuels A fossil fuel is a flammable carbon compound- or hydrocarbon-containing material formed naturally in the Earth's crust from the buried remains of prehistoric organisms (animals, plants or microplanktons), a process that occurs within geologica ...

. The high annual incidence of sunshine in the

Negev Desert The Negev ( ; ) or Naqab (), is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The region's largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba (pop. ), in the north. At its southern end is the Gulf of Aqaba and the resort town, resort city ...

has spurred an internationally renowned solar research and development industry.Solar Energy in Israel
David Faiman for the Jewish Virtual Library. At the end of 2008, a

feed-in tariff A feed-in tariff (FIT, FiT, standard offer contract,Couture, T., Cory, K., Kreycik, C., Williams, E., (2010)Policymaker's Guide to Feed-in Tariff Policy Design National Renewable Energy Laboratory, U.S. Dept. of Energy advanced renewable tariff, ...

scheme was approved which has led to many residential and commercial solar energy power station projects. Israel's objective in 2011 was to produce 10% of the country's energy from renewable sources by 2020, and officials from Cabinet and The Electricity Authority gave the goal in 2023 to produce 30% of the country's energy from renewable sources by 2030.

History and development

Israel GHI mid-size-map 156x220mm-300dpi v20191205

In 1949, the prime minister,

David Ben-Gurion David Ben-Gurion ( ; ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary List of national founders, national founder and first Prime Minister of Israel, prime minister of the State of Israel. As head of the Jewish Agency ...

, offered Harry Zvi Tabor a job on the 'physics and engineering desk' of the Research Council of Israel, which he accepted. He created an Israeli national laboratory and created standards amongst the different measurements in use in the country, primarily

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

, Ottoman and

metric Metric or metrical may refer to: Measuring * Metric system, an internationally adopted decimal system of measurement * An adjective indicating relation to measurement in general, or a noun describing a specific type of measurement Mathematics ...

.Bright ideas
Ehud Zion Waldoks, ''

The Jerusalem Post ''The Jerusalem Post'' is an English language, English-language Israeli broadsheet newspaper based in Jerusalem, Israel, founded in 1932 during the Mandate for Palestine, British Mandate of Mandatory Palestine, Palestine by Gershon Agron as ''Th ...

'', 1 October 2008.Harry Zvi Tabor
Cleveland Cutler, Encyclopedia of the Earth, 2007. Once the laboratory was established, he focused on

for

research and development Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in some countries as OKB, experiment and design, is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products. R&D constitutes the first stage ...

. Solar energy was particularly attractive because of the abundance and strength in Israel of the sun's rays and Israel's geographic latitude location is on the

30th parallel north Following are circles of latitude between the 25th parallel north and the 30th parallel north: 26th parallel north The 26th parallel north is a circle of latitude that is 26 degrees north of the Earth's equatorial plane. It crosses Africa, A ...

, where the annual incident

solar irradiance Solar irradiance is the power per unit area (surface power density) received from the Sun in the form of electromagnetic radiation in the wavelength range of the measuring instrument. Solar irradiance is measured in watts per square metre ( ...

is 2000 kWh per m². Second, Israel lacks oil, and the conflicts with its neighbors made the procurement of a stable source of energy a national priority. In particular, it is argued that the best defense against missile attack felling the national power grid would be to build a distributed power network, which would mean solar fields of 25–50 megawatts across Israel.The solar vote
Yosef I. Abramowitz and David Lehreer, ''

Haaretz ''Haaretz'' (; originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , , ) is an List of newspapers in Israel, Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel. The paper is published in Hebrew lan ...

'', 2 November 2008. Early in the 1950s, Tabor began to examine why solar installations were inefficient. He eventually devised 'selective black surfaces', which his team at the National Physical Laboratory modified using

nickel Nickel is a chemical element; it has symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive, but large pieces are slo ...

and chrome methods to blacken metals. These surfaces, which became known as Tabor surfaces, are particularly effective at trapping heat for use in solar water heaters. Tabor and French immigrant Lucien Bronicki developed a small solar power unit, the

Organic Rankine cycle In thermal engineering, the organic Rankine cycle (ORC) is a type of thermodynamic cycle. It is a variation of the Rankine cycle named for its use of an organic, high- molecular-mass fluid (compared to water) whose vaporization temperature is l ...

turbine A turbine ( or ) (from the Greek , ''tyrbē'', or Latin ''turbo'', meaning vortex) is a rotary mechanical device that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful work. The work produced can be used for generating electrical ...

, for use by developing countries with problematic power grids.Israeli Section of the International Solar Energy Society
, edited by Gershon Grossman, Faculty of Mechanical Energy, Technion,

Haifa Haifa ( ; , ; ) is the List of cities in Israel, third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropolitan area i ...

; Final draft. It was designed to neutralize the maintenance issues of

reciprocating engine A reciprocating engine, more often known as a piston engine, is a heat engine that uses one or more reciprocating pistons to convert high temperature and high pressure into a rotating motion. This article describes the common features of al ...

s so it had only one moving part, the

rotor ROTOR was an elaborate air defence radar system built by the British Government in the early 1950s to counter possible attack by Soviet bombers. To get it operational as quickly as possible, it was initially made up primarily of WWII-era syst ...

. A 3 kWe prototype was exhibited at the 1961 United Nations Conference on New Sources of Energy in

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

, but it failed to find commercial success. Citing lack of land for ground solar PV parks, Israel mandated in 2023 that all newly constructed commercial buildings install rooftop photovoltaic solar panels.

Dead Sea solar pond

In 1965, Lucien Bronicki established Ormat Industries to commercialize the Organic Rankine cycle turbine concept. In the 1970s and 1980s Ormat built and operated one of the world's first power stations to produce electricity from solar energy, at Ein Bokek, near the southern part of the

Dead Sea The Dead Sea (; or ; ), also known by #Names, other names, is a landlocked salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east, the Israeli-occupied West Bank to the west and Israel to the southwest. It lies in the endorheic basin of the Jordan Rift Valle ...

in Israel. The plant used a technology known as the solar pond, a large-scale solar thermal energy collector with integral heat storage for supplying thermal energy. It was the largest operating solar pond ever built for electricity generation and operated until 1988. It had an area of 210,000 m² and produced an electrical output of 5 MW.

Solar water heaters

During the period of austerity in Israel in the 1950s, there was a fuel shortage, and the government forbade heating water between 10 a.m. and 6 pm. As the situation worsened, engineer Levi Yissar proposed that instead of the construction of more electrical generation plants, homes should switch to solar water heaters. He built a prototype in his home, and in 1953 he started NerYah Company, Israel's first commercial manufacturer of solar water heaters. By 1967 around one in twenty households heated its water with the sun and 50,000 solar heaters had been sold. However, cheap oil from Iran and from oilfields captured in the

Six-Day War The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...

made Israeli electricity cheaper and the demand for solar heaters dropped. After the energy crisis in the 1970s, in 1980 the Israeli

Knesset The Knesset ( , ) is the Unicameralism, unicameral legislature of Israel. The Knesset passes all laws, elects the President of Israel, president and Prime Minister of Israel, prime minister, approves the Cabinet of Israel, cabinet, and supe ...

passed a law requiring the installation of solar water heaters in all new homes except high towers with insufficient roof area. As a result, Israel was in 2007 the world leader in the use of solar energy ''per capita'' (3% of the primary national energy consumption). As of the early 1990s, all new residential buildings were required by the government to install solar water-heating systems, and Israel's National Infrastructure Ministry estimates that solar panels for water-heating satisfy 4% of the country's total energy demand. Israel and Cyprus are the per-capita leaders in the use of solar hot water systems with over 90% of homes using them. The Ministry of National Infrastructures estimates solar water heating saves Israel of oil a year.

Feed-in tariff

On 2 June 2008, the Israeli Public Utility Authority approved a

for solar plants. The tariff is limited to a total installation of 50 MW during 7 years, whichever is reached first, with a maximum of 15 kWp installation for residential and a maximum of 50 kWp for commercial. The National Infrastructures Ministry announced in December 2009 on expanding the

scheme to include medium-sized solar-power stations ranging from 50 kilowatts to 5 megawatts, though only one project had been approved by June 2010.

Educational and research facilities

The Grand Technion Energy Program (GTEP)

Multidisciplinary scientists at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology are pooling resources at GTEP to advance the science behind solar power. Nano science and solar energy GTEP is working in the field of nano-energy. *Efrat Lifshitz discovered that nano-sized materials consisting of nanocrystal quantum dots can absorb sunlight not only in the visible range, as materials currently used in solar panels do, but also in the infrared and UV ranges. This makes them ideal in photovoltaic cells used to turn sunlight into electricity, promising much more efficient solar power. * Nir Tessler leads a group on organic photovoltaic material. *Gitti Frey specializes in organic electronics – plastic electronics that are functional electronically and optically. They emit light and can transmit electrical signals, or absorb light and generate energy such as electricity. Frey introduces whole new properties in this field, creating effective and useful self-organizing structures on the nano-scale. Frey is working on a solar cell to convert sunlight into electrical energy. She predicts this research will lead to solar-power systems that are cheaper, unbreakable, flexible, better-looking, and versatile.

National Solar Energy Center

The National Solar Energy Center was founded in 1987 by the Ministry of National Infrastructures, and is part of

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) (, ''Universitat Ben-Guriyon baNegev'') is a public university, public research university in Beersheba, Israel. Named after Israeli List of national founders, national founder David Ben-Gurion, the unive ...

.Ben Gurion National Solar Energy Center
In 2007, David Faiman, the center's director, announced that the center had entered into a project with Zenith Solar to create a home solar energy system that uses a 10-square meter reflector dish.Reflective mirrors seen raising solar potential
Ari Rabinovitch,

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency ...

, 10 August 2007. In testing, the concentrated solar technology proved to be up to five times more efficient than standard flat

silicon Silicon is a chemical element; it has symbol Si and atomic number 14. It is a hard, brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic lustre, and is a tetravalent metalloid (sometimes considered a non-metal) and semiconductor. It is a membe ...

panels, which would make it almost as cheap as oil and natural gas. A prototype ready for commercialization achieved a concentration of solar energy that was more than 1,000 times greater than that from standard flat panels. According to Faiman, who led the Israeli team that developed the technology, 10% of Israel's population (1,000

megawatts The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named in honor o ...

) could live on the energy from 12 square kilometers of land.Zenith Solar’s Light of a Thousand Suns
, ''Green Prophet'', 17 December 2007.

Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research

The Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research facility was founded by Amos Richmond, and its faculty is part of the

. It has a solar energy research program that has assisted in the development of passive heating, involving the mitigation of extremes of heat and cold in the desert through efficient storage from day to nighttime. One research project is an inhabited

adobe Adobe (from arabic: الطوب Attub ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is use ...

house with prisms that transmit heat during the day and can be rotated to allow the heat to discharge at night installed in the room. There is a double-skin

greenhouse A greenhouse is a structure that is designed to regulate the temperature and humidity of the environment inside. There are different types of greenhouses, but they all have large areas covered with transparent materials that let sunlight pass an ...

that uses

copper sulfate Copper sulfate may refer to: * Copper(II) sulfate, CuSO4, a common, greenish blue compound used as a fungicide and herbicide * Copper(I) sulfate, Cu2SO4, an unstable white solid which is uncommonly used {{chemistry index Copper compounds ...

solution as a heat screen during the day. The liquid, pumped between the two skins, protects the interior from

ultraviolet Ultraviolet radiation, also known as simply UV, is electromagnetic radiation of wavelengths of 10–400 nanometers, shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays. UV radiation is present in sunlight and constitutes about 10% of ...

rays, and collects heat. At night the liquid is recirculated, returning the heat to the greenhouse.

Weizmann Institute Solar Research Facilities Unit

In addition to a solar reactor, the solar research facilities of the

Weizmann Institute of Science The Weizmann Institute of Science ( ''Machon Weizmann LeMada'') is a Public university, public research university in Rehovot, Israel, established in 1934, fourteen years before the State of Israel was founded. Unlike other List of Israeli uni ...

are among the most advanced laboratories in the world for concentrated solar energy research.Jacob Karni and Michael Epstein, Weizmann Institute, July 2002.
/ref> They have tested solar technology in the production of hydrogen fuel, which has been successfully trialled on a large scale.Solar Energy Project at the Weizmann Institute Promises to Advance the Use of Hydrogen Fuel
, American Committee for the Weizmann Institute, 6 August 2005. Tareq Abu-Hamed, an Israeli scientist at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...

, with colleagues Jacob Karni and Michael Epstein, head of the Solar Facility at Weizmann, were the developers of a new method to produce hydrogen fuel more cheaply, efficiently and safely while solving storage and transportation issues.Forget gas! Fill your tanks with water, Weizmann researcher says
, Nicky Blackburn, ''

Jerusalem Post ''The Jerusalem Post'' is an English-language Israeli broadsheet newspaper based in Jerusalem, Israel, founded in 1932 during the British Mandate of Palestine by Gershon Agron as ''The Palestine Post''. In 1950, it changed its name to ''The Je ...

'', 20 September 2006. Other innovations include harnessing sunlight for space communications and meteorological information; controlling light-dependent chemical reactions; and developing photodynamic cancer therapy.The Crystal Connection: Solar Lasers in Space

Solar power stations

The Negev

The Negev Desert and the surrounding area, including the Arava Valley, are the sunniest parts of Israel, and little of this land is arable, which is why it has become the center of the Israeli solar industry.Head of Kibbutz Movement: We will not be discriminated against by the government
, Ehud Zion Waldoks, ''

'', 10 March 2008. David Faiman thinks the energy needs of Israel's future could be met by building solar energy plants in the Negev. As director of Ben-Gurion National Solar Energy Center, he operates one of the largest solar dishes in the world.Giant solar plants in Negev could power Israel's future
John Lettice, ''

The Register ''The Register'' (often also called El Reg) is a British Technology journalism, technology news website co-founded in 1994 by Mike Magee (journalist), Mike Magee and John Lettice. The online newspaper's Nameplate_(publishing), masthead Logo, s ...

'', 25 January 2008 In May 2016, the 50 MW Zmorot Solar Park came online. The plant has a 207,000-panel solar park and took 18 months to construct. In the Rotem Industrial Complex outside of Dimona, Israel, more than 1,600 solar mirrors focus the sun's rays on a tower to heat a water boiler to create steam. BrightSource Industries (Israel), Ltd., uses the solar array to test new technology for the three new solar plants to be built in California for

Pacific Gas and Electric Company The Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) is an American investor-owned utility (IOU). The company is headquartered at Kaiser Center, in Oakland, California. PG&E provides natural gas and electricity to 5.2 million households in the norther ...

and Southern California Edison.Calif. solar power test begins — in Israeli desert

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...

, 12 June 2008. Retrieved 23 December 2008.Israel site for California solar power test
Ari Rabinovitch,

, 11 June 2008. In 2020, a 120 MW solar power plant opened in Tze'elim, Israel's largest to date. The solar park expected to generate more than 220 GWh annually. In December 2021, it was announced that Shikun & Binui won a contract to build a 330 MW solar power plant near Dimona, which is expected to become Israel's largest upon its completion in 2023. The solar park will also house a 210 MW energy storage facility. In May 2023, the Israel Land Authority issued a tender to lease on land near Shaqib al-Salam between Highways 25 and 40 for a large-scale solar project. As of September 2023, Israel has two solar-plus-storage projects, with the first being the Arad Valley 1's 17-MW solar farm with an energy storage system of 31 MWh, and the second being Sde Nitzan's 23 MW of solar and 40 MWh of storage capacity project. In September 2023, solar farms extending 14,000 dunams, or 3,500 acres, near the Israel-Gaza border fence were proposed officially. The total cost of the project is over NIS 4 billion, and the proposal has the potential to produce over 2 GW of electricity. An extensive solar park is also proposed for an underground data center near

Eilat Eilat ( , ; ; ) is Israel's southernmost city, with a population of , a busy port of Eilat, port and popular resort at the northern tip of the Red Sea, on what is known in Israel as the Gulf of Eilat and in Jordan as the Gulf of Aqaba. The c ...

as of late 2023.

Farming and kibbutzim

Israel's first solar power station opened in August 2008. Moshe Tenne built the 50 KW plant on his

Negev The Negev ( ; ) or Naqab (), is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The region's largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba (pop. ), in the north. At its southern end is the Gulf of Aqaba and the resort town, resort city ...

farm for NIS 1.3 million, and he expects to earn NIS 220,000 a year from selling excess electricity to the national

power grid ''Power Grid'' is the English-language version of the second edition of the multiplayer German-style board game ''Funkenschlag'', designed by Friedemann Friese and first released in 2004. ''Power Grid'' was released by Rio Grande Games. I ...

.Israel's first solar power station up and running in Negev
Avi Bar-Eli,

, 18 September 2008. After the National Infrastructures Ministry announced it would expand its

scheme to include medium-sized solar-power stations ranging from 50 kilowatts to 5 megawatts,

Sunday Solar Energy Sunday (Latin: ''dies solis'' meaning "day of the sun") is the day of the week between Saturday and Monday. Sunday is a day of rest in most Western countries and a part of the weekend. In some Middle Eastern countries, Sunday is a weekday. ...

announced that it would invest $133 million in photovoltaic solar arrays for installation on

kibbutzim A kibbutz ( / , ; : kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1910, was Degania. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, i ...

.Sunday Solar powers Israeli kibbutzim
, Cleantech.com news, 17 October 2008. In December 2008, the Sunday company announced that Kibbutz Reim in the western Negev would be the first community in the world to rely entirely on solar energy.The first solar kibbutz
Amir Ben-David,

Ynet Ynet (stylized in all lowercase) is an Israeli news and general-content website, and the online outlet for the '' Yedioth Ahronoth'' newspaper. History Ynet launched on June 6, 2000, in Hebrew, following other Hebrew outlet's website launches ...

, 22 December 2008. The Reim installation, costing NIS 60–100 million, would generate at least 2.5 megawatts during peak consumption. Excess energy would be sold to the Israel Electric Company. The investment is expected to pay for itself in 10 years, and the costs and revenues will be divided evenly between the kibbutz and Sunday. In April 2023, it was announced that energy company Teralight would be building one of Israel's largest solar parks, the Ta'anach PV project, in the

Jezreel Valley The Jezreel Valley (from the ), or Marj Ibn Amir (), also known as the Valley of Megiddo, is a large fertile plain and inland valley in the Northern District (Israel), Northern District of Israel. It is bordered to the north by the highlands o ...

, northern Israel. Ta'anakh solar will have 250 MW of installed capacity and 550 MWh of solar-plus-storage. The 250 MW of installed capacity "is equal to 5.2% of Israel's green energy capacity and 1.2% of its overall electricity capacity." The new solar park can power over 60,000 Israeli households, assisting nearly 250,000 Israelis. In May 2023, the Israeli government announced it would be building four

battery storage power station A battery energy storage system (BESS), battery storage power station, battery energy grid storage (BEGS) or battery grid storage is a type of energy storage technology that uses a group of batteries in the grid to store electrical energy. Batte ...

in the northern Gilboa region, making it one of Israel's largest energy storage projects to date. The initial buildout will total 800 MW/3,200 MWh, and each of the four energy storage facilities will have 200 MW of capacity, and all four will have four hours of storage duration.

Arava Power Company

Ketura Sun is Israel's first commercial solar field. Built in early 2011 by the Arava Power Company on Kibbutz Ketura, Ketura Sun covers and is expected to produce green energy amounting to 4.95 megawatts. The field consists of 18,500

panels made by Suntech, which will produce about 9 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year. In the following twenty years, the field should spare the production of some 125,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide. The field was inaugurated on 15 June 2011. On 22 May 2012, Arava Power Company announced that it had reached financial close on an additional 58.5 MW for 8 projects to be built in the Arava and the Negev valued at 780 million NIS or approximately $204 million. APC President and Co-founder Yosef Abramowitz stated, "Our work is not yet done. Israel needs to adopt the European Union goal of 20 percent renewables by 2020 and this major milestone by Arava Power is proof positive that it can be reached. Furthermore, an injustice must be corrected by creating a special quota of solar fields for Bedouin land owners, who are locked out of the current solar program." Additionally, the Arava Power Company signed multiple agreements with

Bedouin The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu ( ; , singular ) are pastorally nomadic Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia (Iraq). The Bedouin originated in the Sy ...

families in the

desert to build solar fields on approximately of land, with a production capability of up to 20 megawatts. APC has been lobbying the Israeli government to create separate solar caps for Bedouins. On 7 February 2012, Arava Power announced that it had received a license for the Tarabin Solar Field, the first solar field for the Bedouin community. Financing for the $30 million Tarabin installation is to be provided by OPIC – the Overseas Private Investment Corporation of the United States Government. Arava Power President Yosef Abramowitz sees solar power for the Bedouin as a positive example for Native Americans, First Nations, Aboriginals and others with historic land claims.

Carmey Avdat Winery

Sunday Solar Energy was commissioned to build a solar installation for the Carmey Avdat winery in the Negev Desert. The 50 kW peak installation covers the 200-square meter roof of the winery and provides 65 percent of its annual energy needs.

Kibbutz Samar

The Aora's Solar "Flower" Tower is the world's first solar hybrid power plant, comprising 30 heliostat solar reflectors. The plant switches to natural gas-powered turbines after dark so that it can continue producing power 24 hours a day.

Ramat Hovav solar field

The '' Ramat Hovav solar field'' is 37.5 MW project near Ramat Hovav, operational since December 2014. The photovoltaic power plant is owned by Energix Renewable Energies Ltd It was built by the Belectric over a rehabilitated evaporation pond. The facility uses CdTe photovoltaic modules based on thin-film technology, manufactured by U.S. company First Solar, making it the country's largest PV power plant so far and one of the largest of its kind in the Middle East.

Ashalim

The Ashalim power station is a solar power station in the Negev desert near the

kibbutz A kibbutz ( / , ; : kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1910, was Degania Alef, Degania. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economi ...

of Ashalim, (south of the district city of

Be'er Sheva Beersheba ( / ; ), officially Be'er-Sheva, is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Often referred to as the "Capital of the Negev", it is the centre of the fourth-most populous metropolitan area in Israel, the eighth-most po ...

) in Israel. It had the tallest operating solar power tower in the world since 2019 but will be overtowered by a project in Dubai in late 2021. As of 2023, Ashalim has two photovoltaic (PV) facilities generating 70MW in total, two thermo-solar power fields generating 120MW, and a fifth 100 MW solar energy plant in planning, which is scheduled to begin operations in 2027.

Finance and business

Former providers

Solel testing site at the National Solar Energy Center in Israel

* Solel has nine fields of solar collectors in the Mojave Desert of California. * Zenith Solar pioneered "concentrated solar power", claiming it to be up to five times more efficient than standard PV technology, making it almost as cost as traditional

. In December 2013, Zenith Solar was acquired by Suncore Photovoltaics Technology Company Limited, a Chinese-US joint venture that specializes in CPV.China's Suncore represented by Barnea & Co. acquired the assets of Israel's Zenith Solar
, Barnea & Co

Holdings and finance

* Arava Power Company was founded in 2006 on Ketura in the Arava Valley. On 5 June 2011, APC inaugurated Israel's first medium-sized solar field, Ketura Sun at 5 MW.

References

External links

Quick Guide to Israeli Solar Energy Companies on Green ProphetChromagen dominates the Israeli market in which 85% of the households rely on thermal solar systems for hot waterIsrael Pushes Solar Energy Technology

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

2007 IEA Annual Report for IsraelCenter for Energy Research
{{Portal bar, Energy, Israel