Solar power in Israel
[2] The high annual incidence of sunshine in the Negev Desert has spurred an internationally renowned solar research and development industry.
[5] At the end of 2008, a feed-in tariff scheme was approved which has led to many residential and commercial solar energy power station projects.
[7][8][9] In 1949, the prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, offered Harry Zvi Tabor a job on the 'physics and engineering desk' of the Research Council of Israel, which he accepted.
He eventually devised 'selective black surfaces', which his team at the National Physical Laboratory modified using nickel and chrome methods to blacken metals.
A 3 kWe prototype was exhibited at the 1961 United Nations Conference on New Sources of Energy in Rome, but it failed to find commercial success.
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 in Israel.
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.
[1] However, cheap oil from Iran and from oilfields captured in the Six-Day War made Israeli electricity cheaper and the demand for solar heaters dropped.
[29] After the energy crisis in the 1970s, in 1980 the Israeli Knesset passed a law requiring the installation of solar water heaters in all new homes except high towers with insufficient roof area.
[31] The Ministry of National Infrastructures estimates solar water heating saves Israel 2 million barrels (320,000 m3) of oil a year.
[32] The National Infrastructures Ministry announced in December 2009 on expanding the feed-in tariff 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.
Multidisciplinary scientists at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology are pooling resources at GTEP to advance the science behind solar power.
[35] In testing, the concentrated solar technology proved to be up to five times more efficient than standard flat photovoltaic silicon panels, which would make it almost as cheap as oil and natural gas.
[2] According to Faiman, who led the Israeli team that developed the technology, 10% of Israel's population (1,000 megawatts) could live on the energy from 12 square kilometers of land.
[36] The Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research facility was founded by Amos Richmond, and its faculty is part of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
[39] Tareq Abu-Hamed, an Israeli scientist at the University of Minnesota, 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.
[40] Other innovations include harnessing sunlight for space communications and meteorological information; controlling light-dependent chemical reactions; and developing photodynamic cancer therapy.
[41] 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.
[44] 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.
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.
[56] 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.
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.
"[67] Additionally, the Arava Power Company signed multiple agreements with Bedouin families in the Negev desert to build solar fields on approximately 37 hectares (92 acres) of land, with a production capability of up to 20 megawatts.
