Orot Rabin

As of 2022 it is Israel’s largest power station and contains six thermal generation units capable of producing a total of 2.59GW of electricity using coal as the primary fuel.

[1] The older, unmodernised four of its total six coal-fuelled units[1] will be closed by mid-2022 in order to eliminate this major source of air pollution in the country.

In 2016 the Israeli Ministry of Energy announced that the IEC would be ordered to shut down the older block 1 (generation units 1-4) of the station in the early 2020s.

The new gas-powered plant is expected to be built in the space originally reserved for additional coal units in the northern part of the Orot Rabin site and although shut down, coal units 1-4 will continue to be maintained so that they may be restarted in case of emergency (such as an extended disruption in the domestic supply of natural gas).

[2] The shutdown of coal units 1-4 will also save Israel's economy billions of shekels, and bring its electricity sector into the 21st century in accordance to developed world standards.

[3] On the other hand, hot water gushing from the plant draws schools of hundreds of sandbar and dusky sharks every winter.

The chimneys at Orot Rabin