The Ashalim power station is a concentrated solar

power station A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the electricity generation, generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electr ...

in the

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 ...

desert A desert is a landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions create unique biomes and ecosystems. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About one-third of the la ...

near the

community settlement A community settlement (, ''Yishuv Kehilati'') is a type of town or village in Israel and in the West Bank. In an ordinary town, anyone may buy property, but in a community settlement, the village's residents are organized in a cooperative an ...

Ashalim Ashalim () is a small community settlement (Israel), community settlement in southern Israel. Located in the Negev desert about 35 km south of Be'er Sheva and on the eastern side of Besor, Nahal Besor, the largest stream in the Negev, it fal ...

, 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 ...

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 ...

. It consists of three plots with three different technologies through which the station combines 3 kinds of energy:

solar thermal energy Solar thermal energy (STE) is a form of energy and a technology for harnessing solar energy to generate thermal energy for use in Industrial sector, industry, and in the residential and commercial sectors. Solar thermal collectors are classified ...

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 ...

energy, and natural gas. Ashalim Plot A (Negev Energy) is a 121 megawatt

parabolic trough A parabolic trough collector (PTC) is a type of solar thermal collector that is straight in one dimension and curved as a parabola in the other two, lined with a polished metal mirror. The sunlight which enters the mirror parallel to its plane of ...

plant with 4.5 hours of

thermal energy storage Thermal energy storage (TES) is the storage of thermal energy for later reuse. Employing widely different technologies, it allows surplus thermal energy to be stored for hours, days, or months. Scale both of storage and use vary from small t ...

. The Ashalim Plot B (Megalim) hosts a

solar power tower A solar power tower, also known as 'central tower' power plant or 'heliostat' power plant, is a type of solar furnace using a tower to receive focused sunlight. It uses an array of flat, movable mirrors (called heliostats) to focus the sun's ra ...

. It has an installed capacity of 121 megawatts, concentrating 50,600 computer-controlled heliostats enough to power 120,000 homes. Electricity production commenced in September 2019, producing 320 GWhr of energy per year. The project was a joint venture between Brightsource and

Alstom Alstom SA () is a French multinational rolling stock manufacturer which operates worldwide in rail transport markets. It is active in the fields of passenger transportation, signaling, and locomotives, producing high-speed, suburban, regional ...

. The station was the tallest solar power tower in the world at a height of 260 meters including the boiler but was recently surpassed by the 262.44 meter tall solar power tower at the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park. Ashalim Plot C is a 30 MW photovoltaic plant, commissioned in 2018, one year before the CSP plants. In 2019 EDF Renewables won a tender for another NIS 150 ($43) million PV plant at a record low price of 8.68 agorot (3 cents) per kilowatt hour.

Reasons for building the power station

According to a press release of the National Infrastructure Minister of Israel, the establishment has several motivations: # Economic motivation: reducing imports thus balancing the trade and releasing foreign currency. # Political motivation: reducing strategic dependence on foreign energy sources. # Environmental motivation: reducing contamination levels. # Scientific motivation: pushing forward local technology and science, adapting new technologies from abroad. Ashalim above.jpg Ashalim_Power_Station.jpg Brigthsource Tower Ashalim 3.jpg

Cost concerns

The

concentrated solar power Concentrated solar power (CSP, also known as concentrating solar power, concentrated solar thermal) systems generate solar power by using mirrors or lenses to concentrate a large area of sunlight into a receiver. Electricity is generated whe ...

project in Ashalim was announced in 2008 and awarded in a competitive auction 2012 at NIS0.79 ($0.22) per kilowatt hour for Plot B – almost a factor of 9 compared to the PV stations tendered in 2019 at the same spot (see above). Similarly, the project on Plot A at NIS 0.76 per kWh, but including 4.5 hours of molten salt storage, delivers four times more expensive power than the results of tenders for solar plus 4 hours of storage awarded at the beginning of 2021 at NIS0.17/kWh ($0.054) to be delivered by 2023.

References

External links

Weizmann Institute of Science - Center for Energy Research

Megalim Solar power construction and commissioning

Take a tour of Ashalim Power Station
{{Portalbar, Israel, Renewable energy Solar power stations in Israel Solar thermal energy

Reasons for building the power station

Cost concerns

See also

References

External links