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 radiant light and heat from the Sun that is harnessed using a range of technologies such as solar power to generate electricity, solar thermal energy (including solar water heating), and solar architecture. It is an ...

began in

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

in the 1950s with the development by

Levi Yissar Levi Yissar was an Israeli engineer and entrepreneur. He built the first prototype Israeli solar water heater. By 1967 around one in twenty households heated their water with the sun and 50,000 solar heaters had been sold. However, cheap oil from ...

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

household A household consists of two or more persons who live in the same dwelling. It may be of a single family or another type of person group. The household is the basic unit of analysis in many social, microeconomic and government models, and is im ...

s were solar heated and 50,000 solar heaters had been sold. With the 1970s oil crisis,

Harry Zvi Tabor Harry Zvi Tabor (March 7, 1917 – December 15, 2015) was an Israeli physicist. He is known as the father of Israeli solar energy.

developed the prototype of the solar water heater now used in over 90% of Israeli homes.At the Zenith of Solar Energy
Neal Sandler, ''

BusinessWeek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York Cit ...

'', March 26, 2008. There are over 1.3 million solar water heaters installed as a result of mandatory solar water heating regulations. Israeli engineers have been at the cutting edge of solar energy technologyIsrael Pushes Solar Energy Technology
Linda Gradstein, ''

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from othe ...

'', October 22, 2007. and its solar companies work on projects around the world.Looking to the sun
Tom Parry,

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (french: Société Radio-Canada), branded as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian public broadcaster for both radio and television. It is a federal Crown corporation that receives funding from the governme ...

, August 15, 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 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. The high annual incidence of

sunshine Sunlight is a portion of the electromagnetic radiation given off by the Sun, in particular infrared, visible, and ultraviolet light. On Earth, sunlight is scattered and filtered through Earth's atmosphere, and is obvious as daylight when ...

in the

Negev Desert The Negev or Negeb (; he, הַנֶּגֶב, hanNegév; ar, ٱلنَّقَب, an-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 southe ...

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 is to produce 10% of the country's energy from renewable sources by 2020, and a recent cabinet decision gave the objective to reach 30% of the country's energy from renewable sources by 2030.

History and development

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

In 1949,

prime minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

David Ben-Gurion David Ben-Gurion ( ; he, דָּוִד בֶּן-גּוּרִיּוֹן ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary national founder of the State of Israel and the first prime minister of Israel. Adopting the na ...

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, Ottoman and metric.Bright ideas
Ehud Zion Waldoks, '' Jerusalem Post'', October 1, 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 Europe as research and technological development (RTD), is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products, and improving existi ...

. Solar energy was particularly attractive because of the abundance and strength in Israel of the sun's rays and Israel's

geographic latitude In geography, latitude is a coordinate that specifies the north–south position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body. Latitude is given as an angle that ranges from –90° at the south pole to 90° at the north pol ...

location is on the

30th parallel north The 30th parallel north is a circle of latitude that is 30 degrees north of the Earth's equatorial plane. It stands one-third of the way between the equator and the North Pole and crosses Africa, Asia, the Pacific Ocean, North America and th ...

, 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 metr ...

is 2000

kWh A kilowatt-hour (unit symbol: kW⋅h or kW h; commonly written as kWh) is a unit of energy: one kilowatt of power for one hour. In terms of SI derived units with special names, it equals 3.6 megajoules (MJ). Kilowatt-hours are a common bil ...

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 Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel, and is now published in both Hebrew and English in the Berliner ...

'', November 2, 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 with 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 slow ...

and

chrome Chrome may refer to: Materials * Chrome plating, a process of surfacing with chromium * Chrome alum, a chemical used in mordanting and photographic film Computing * Google Chrome, a web browser developed by Google ** ChromeOS, a Google 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 whose vaporization temperature is lower than that of w ...

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 by a turbine can be used for generating ...

, for 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 ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the 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 metropoli ...

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

reciprocating engine A reciprocating engine, also often known as a piston engine, is typically 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 fea ...

s so it had only one moving part, the

rotor Rotor may refer to: Science and technology Engineering *Rotor (electric), the non-stationary part of an alternator or electric motor, operating with a stationary element so called the stator *Helicopter rotor, the rotary wing(s) of a rotorcraft ...

. A 3 kWe prototype was exhibited at the 1961

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmonizi ...

Conference on New Sources of Energy in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, but it failed to find commercial success.

Dead Sea Solar pond

In 1965, Lucien Bronicki established Ormat Industries to commercialize the

concept. In the 1970s and 1980s Ormat built and operated one of the world's first power stations to produce electricity from solar energy; the plant was located at Ein Bokek near the southern part of the

Dead Sea The Dead Sea ( he, יַם הַמֶּלַח, ''Yam hamMelaḥ''; ar, اَلْبَحْرُ الْمَيْتُ, ''Āl-Baḥrū l-Maytū''), also known by other names, is a salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east and Israel and the West Bank ...

in Israel. The plant utilised 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 up until 1988. It had an area of 210,000 m² and gave an electrical output of 5 MW.

Solar water heaters

During the period of

austerity in Israel Austerity is a set of political-economic policies that aim to reduce government budget deficits through spending cuts, tax increases, or a combination of both. There are three primary types of austerity measures: higher taxes to fund spendi ...

in the 1950s, there was a fuel shortage, and the government forbade heating water between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. 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

s heated its water with the sun and 50,000 solar heaters had been sold. However, cheap oil from Iran and from oil fields captured in the

Six-Day War The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 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, S ...

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 ( he, הַכְּנֶסֶת ; "gathering" or "assembly") is the unicameral legislature of Israel. As the supreme state body, the Knesset is sovereign and thus has complete control of the entirety of the Israeli government (with ...

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 ''Per capita'' is a Latin phrase literally meaning "by heads" or "for each head", and idiomatically used to mean "per person". The term is used in a wide variety of social sciences and statistical research contexts, including government statistic ...

'' (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 June 2, 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 50kWp for

commercial Commercial may refer to: * a dose of advertising conveyed through media (such as - for example - radio or television) ** Radio advertisement ** Television advertisement * (adjective for:) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and s ...

. 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 was 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 a
GTEP
to advance the science behind solar power. Nano science and solar energy With its strong basis in nanotechnology and science, GTEP is pioneering 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 Nir Tessler (Hebrew: ניר טסלר; born: 1962) is the Barbara and Norman Seiden professor in the Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering and head of the Microelectronics and Nanoelectronics centers at the Technion - Israel Institute of ...

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 which are cheaper, unbreakable, flexible, more aesthetic 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) ( he, אוניברסיטת בן-גוריון בנגב, ''Universitat Ben-Guriyon baNegev'') is a public research university in Beersheba, Israel. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has five campuses: the ...

.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 Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was est ...

, August 10, 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 with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. It is a hard, brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic luster, and is a tetravalent metalloid and semiconductor. It is a member of group 14 in the periodic ...

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 after James ...

) could live on the energy from 12 square kilometres of land.Zenith Solar’s Light of a Thousand Suns
, ''Green Prophet'', December 17, 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 ( ; ) 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 used to refer to any kind of ...

house with rational fenestration.

Prism Prism usually refers to: * Prism (optics), a transparent optical component with flat surfaces that refract light * Prism (geometry), a kind of polyhedron Prism may also refer to: Science and mathematics * Prism (geology), a type of sedimentary ...

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

greenhouse A greenhouse (also called a glasshouse, or, if with sufficient heating, a hothouse) is a structure with walls and roof made chiefly of transparent material, such as glass, in which plants requiring regulated climatic conditions are grown.These ...

that uses

copper sulfate Copper sulfate may refer to: * Copper(II) sulfate Copper(II) sulfate, also known as copper sulphate, is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula . It forms hydrates , where ''n'' can range from 1 to 7. The pentahydrate (''n'' = 5), a brigh ...

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

ultraviolet Ultraviolet (UV) is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelength from 10 nm (with a corresponding frequency around 30 PHz) to 400 nm (750 THz), shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays. UV radiati ...

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 ( he, מכון ויצמן למדע ''Machon Vaitzman LeMada'') is a public research university in Rehovot, Israel, established in 1934, 14 years before the State of Israel. It differs from other Israeli univ ...

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, August 6, 2005. Tareq Abu-Hamed, an Israeli scientist at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

, 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 Hydrogen fuel refers to hydrogen which is burned as fuel with oxygen. It is zero-carbon, provided that it is created in a process that does not involve carbon. It can be used in fuel cells or internal combustion engines (see HICEV). Regarding hydr ...

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'', September 20, 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 The Arabah, Araba or Aravah ( he, הָעֲרָבָה, ''hāʿĂrāḇā''; ar, وادي عربة, ''Wādī ʿAraba''; lit. "desolate and dry area") is a loosely defined geographic area south of the Dead Sea basin, which forms part of the borde ...

, are the sunniest parts of Israel and little of this land is

arable Arable relates to the growing of crops: * Arable farming or agronomy, the cultivation of field crops * Arable land, land upon which crops are cultivated * Arable crops program The arable crops program is a consolidated support system operated und ...

, 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, '' Jerusalem Post'', March 10, 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'' is a British technology news website co-founded in 1994 by Mike Magee, John Lettice and Ross Alderson. The online newspaper's masthead sublogo is "''Biting the hand that feeds IT''." Their primary focus is information tech ...

'', January 25, 2008 In May 2016, the 50 MW Zmorot Solar Park came online. The plant uses 207,000-panel solar park and took 18 months to construct. In the Rotem Industrial Complex outside of

Dimona, Israel Dimona ( he, דִּימוֹנָה, ar, ديمونا) is an Israeli city in the Negev desert, to the south-east of Beersheba and west of the Dead Sea above the Arava valley in the Southern District of Israel. In its population was . The Shi ...

, 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 in the Pacific Gas & Electric Building, in San Francisco, California. PG&E provides natural gas and electricity to 5.2 milli ...

and

Southern California Edison Southern California Edison (or SCE Corp), the largest subsidiary of Edison International, is the primary electricity supply company for much of Southern California. It provides 15 million people with electricity across a service territory of ap ...

.Calif. solar power test begins — in Israeli desert

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. n ...

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

, June 11, 2008. In 2020, a 120 MW

solar power plant A photovoltaic power station, also known as a solar park, solar farm, or solar power plant, is a large-scale grid-connected photovoltaic power system (PV system) designed for the supply of merchant power. They are different from most building ...

opened in

Tze'elim Tze'elim ( he, צֶאֱלִים) is a kibbutz in southern Israel. Located in the Negev desert, it falls under the jurisdiction of Eshkol Regional Council. In it had a population of . A military training base of the ground forces of the IDF (oft ...

, Israel's largest to date. The solar park expected to generate more than 220 GWh annually.

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 Negeb (; he, הַנֶּגֶב, hanNegév; ar, ٱلنَّقَب, an-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 southe ...

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 An electrical grid is an interconnected network for electricity delivery from producers to consumers. Electrical grids vary in size and can cover whole countries or continents. It consists of:Kaplan, S. M. (2009). Smart Grid. Electrical Power ...

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

, September 18, 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 announced that it would invest $133 million in photovoltaic solar arrays for installation on

kibbutzim A kibbutz ( he, קִבּוּץ / , lit. "gathering, clustering"; plural: kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1909, was Degania. Today, farming h ...

.Sunday Solar powers Israeli kibbutzim
, Cleantech.com news, October 17, 2008. In December 2008, the Sunday company announced that

Kibbutz Reim Re'im ( he, רֵעִים, lit. ''Friends'') is a secular kibbutz in southern Israel, and one of the Gaza vicinity villages. Located at the confluence of Besor Stream and Gerar Stream in the north-western Negev desert, it falls under the jurisdi ...

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 as ynet) is one of the major Israeli news and general-content websites, and is the online outlet for the ''Yedioth Ahronot'' newspaper. However, most of Ynet's content is original work, published exclusively on the website and wri ...

, December 22, 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 Israel Electric Corporation ( he, חברת החשמל לישראל, abbreviation: IEC) is the largest supplier of electrical power in Israel and the Palestinian territories. The IEC builds, maintains, and operates power generation stations, s ...

. 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.

Arava Power Company

Ketura Sun Ketura Sun is Israel’s first commercial solar field. Built in early 2011 by Arava Power Company on Kibbutz Ketura, it covers 20 acres (8.09 hectares) and is expected to produce to 4.95 megawatts. It has the first automatic solar panel cleani ...

is Israel's first commercial solar field. Built in early 2011 by the Arava Power Company on Kibbutz Ketura, Ketura Sun covers twenty acres 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 next twenty years, the field will spare the production of some 125,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide. The field was inaugurated on June 15, 2011. On May 22, 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 Yosef Abramowitz is an Israeli-American environmentalist, president and CEO of Energiya Global Capital as well as co-founder of the Arava Power Company. Biography Abramowitz was born in 1964 in the United States, to a Jewish family. He lived i ...

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 has signed multiple agreements with Bedouin families in the

desert to build solar fields on approximately 92 acres 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 February 7, 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. Ashalim Power Station (2022)

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 Ramat Hovav ( he, רָמַת חוֹבָב), new official name Ne'ot Hovav (), is an industrial zone in southern Israel and the site of Israel's main hazardous waste disposal facility. Ramat Hovav Industrial Zone is the locus of 19 chemical facto ...

solar field'' is 37.5 MW project near Ramat Hovav, operational since December 2014. The

photovoltaic power plant A photovoltaic power station, also known as a solar park, solar farm, or solar power plant, is a large-scale grid-connected photovoltaic power system (PV system) designed for the supply of merchant power. They are different from most building- ...

is owned by

Energix Renewable Energies Ltd Energix Renewable Energies Ltd. is a power producer specializing in renewable energy, currently active mainly in the field of Photovoltaics and Wind power. Energix is a public company traded in the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange since May 2011 (). Ener ...

It was built by the Belectric over a rehabilitated evaporation pond. The facility uses CdTe photovoltaic modules based on

thin-film technology A thin film is a layer of material ranging from fractions of a nanometer (monolayer) to several micrometers in thickness. The controlled synthesis of materials as thin films (a process referred to as deposition) is a fundamental step in many ap ...

, manufactured by U.S. company

First Solar First Solar, Inc. is an American manufacturer of solar panels, and a provider of utility-scale PV power plants and supporting services that include finance, construction, maintenance and end-of-life panel recycling. First Solar uses rigid th ...

, 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 The Ashalim power station is a concentrated solar power station in the Negev desert near the kibbutz of Ashalim, south of the district city of Be'er Sheva in Israel. It consists of three plots with three different technologies the station combin ...

is a 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 generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electrical grid. Many p ...

in the

desert near the

kibbutz A kibbutz ( he, קִבּוּץ / , lit. "gathering, clustering"; plural: kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1909, was Degania. Today, farming h ...

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

, (south of the district city of

Be'er Sheva Beersheba or Beer Sheva, officially Be'er-Sheva ( he, בְּאֵר שֶׁבַע, ''Bəʾēr Ševaʿ'', ; ar, بئر السبع, Biʾr as-Sabʿ, Well of the Oath or Well of the Seven), is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel. ...

) in

. 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.

Finance and business

Technology providers

Solel testing site at the National Solar Energy Center in Israel

Kedma Solar
is dedicated to bringing affordable renewable energy to Israelis through the use of solar

microgrids Distributed generation, also distributed energy, on-site generation (OSG), or district/decentralized energy, is electrical generation and storage performed by a variety of small, grid-connected or distribution system-connected devices referred to ...

. * SolarEdge is a provider of

power optimizer A power optimizer is a DC to DC converter technology developed to maximize the energy harvest from solar photovoltaic or wind turbine systems. They do this by individually tuning the performance of the panel or wind turbine through maximum power p ...

solar inverter A solar inverter or photovoltaic (PV) inverter is a type of power inverter which converts the variable direct current (DC) output of a photovoltaic solar panel into a utility frequency alternating current (AC) that can be fed into a commercial ...

and monitoring solutions for photovoltaic arrays. These products aim to increase energy output through module-level

Maximum Power Point Tracking Maximum power point tracking (MPPT) or sometimes just power point tracking (PPT), is a technique used with variable power sources to maximize energy extraction as conditions vary. The technique is most commonly used with photovoltaic (PV) solar sy ...

(MPPT). Established in 2006, the company has offices in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

, Japan, and

.
Solaris Synergy
developed a solution, which has been proven in operating water surface installations in Israel and is ready for commercial deployment worldwide. * Solel has nine fields of solar collectors in the Mojave Desert of California.
Soltell
an advanced solution for operation and management of distributed solar photovoltaic facilities via the use of sensorless technology for

Photovoltaic system performance Photovoltaic system performance is a function of the climatic conditions, the equipment used and the system configuration. PV performance can be measured as the ratio of actual solar PV system output vs expected values, the measurement being essent ...

monitoring. * 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 fossil fuels. In December 2013, Zenith Solar was acquired by

Suncore Photovoltaics Suncore Photovoltaic Technology Company Limited ("Suncore") is a solar energy company that specializes in concentrator photovoltaics (CPV), an emerging photovoltaic (PV) technology. The company manufactures, develops, and finances CPV systems f ...

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 Arava, Aravah or Arabah may refer to: Places *Arava, Estonia, a village in Anija Commune, Harju County, Estonia *Arava(h) (Hebrew) or Arabah (Arabic), a section of the Great Rift Valley between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba in Israel and Jor ...

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

Israel Cleantech Ventures MoreVC, formerly known as Israel Cleantech Ventures, is a venture capital firm founded in 2006 by Glen Schwaber, Jack Levy, and Meir Ukeles. It is a clean technology venture capital fund intent on providing growth capital to Israel's energy, wat ...

is a venture capital fund that invests in the Israeli

clean technology Clean technology, in short cleantech, is any process, product, or service that reduces negative environmental impacts through significant energy efficiency improvements, the sustainable use of resources, or environmental protection activities. Cl ...

sector.

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

2007 IEA Annual Report for IsraelCenter for Energy Research
{{Solar power by country