Israel formally declared the starting of operations of the nation’s largest renewable energy project — a 121MW thermal solar shiny energy plant in the Negev desert, seen as a crucial portion of the country’s national goal of generating 10 percent of its power from renewable energy sources by 2020.
The plant began production in April and is currently working at 95% of its full capacity. It will supply 0.75% of the country’s electricity, to a 70,000 families. The plant will also reduce some 245,000 tons of CO2 emissions each year, the equivalent of taking 50,000 vehicles away from the road, the website of the job says.
“We are generating electricity from the Israeli sun,” Steinitz said in the ceremony.
Ninety-five percentage of the renewable energy in Israel comes from solar energy, ” he said.
“We’re in the center of a massive historic process,” Steinitz added. If 65% of electricity was produced by coal, now coal accounts for less than 30% of the energy supply, with the remainder replaced with natural gas and solar energy.
They found instead”only desert and swampland. They dried up the swamps and took the arid area and turned it into a resource.”
“Israel has turned salt water ” Saidoff stated, referring to the desalination plants which have been installed in the nation. “And now it’s taken the sunlight, and turned into a curse into a blessing. Individuals turning on their air-conditioners at Tel Aviv possess the power to cool themselves from the desert sun.”
A’sea of mirrors’
Solar electricity provides a clean alternative to gas – and – carbon-fired electricity plants, which lead to global warming with their heat-trapping CO2 emissions.
The Negev Energy job at Ashalim is a portion of 3 plots of desert property that have been earmarked for the creation of solar energy, with a fourth planned for the long run.
Every one of these plots use a different solar technology. Together, the fields are Israel’s largest renewable energy project, set to create some 310 megawatts of power, about 1.6% of the country’s energy needs — enough for approximately 130,000 families, or approximately 5% of Israel’s population, according to the Israel Electricity Authority.
The 3 plots are made up of the following: the 390 hectare Negev Energy job that creates thermal solar power and is able to store energy even when the sun goes down; a 250 meters (820 ft ) solar tower, which also generates thermal solar energy, with tens of thousands of mirrors focusing on the sun’s rays onto the tower, heating a boiler that makes steam to spin a turbine and generate power. This tower started producing electricity at roughly the exact same time as the Negev Energy project. And a third plot uses the more common photovoltaic solar panels, which convert sunlight directly into electricity. The fourth storyline will also be composed of photovoltaic solar panels.
After Israel issued tenders for the projects, mixing the three technologies — Negev Energy using its storing facility, the Tower and the photovoltaic systems, has been viewed as a wise move, since each has its own benefits.
It can be differentiated from the street, standing tall and shiny in the desert.
Thermal solar energy involves generating energy from the warmth of the sun, and notas photovoltaic panels do, from sunlight. Because a large amount of heat is necessary for the thermal solar plants, hills, like the Negev, present perfect conditions for such plants.
The Negev Energy thermal solar plant utilizes”parabolic through technology”, originally developed by Israeli company LUZ International Limited.
During the thermal solar procedure — the lighting of the sun is consumed by parabolic mirrors which are supported by a metallic frame throughout the solar area. These mirrors have the ability to maneuver, and track the sunlight, and heat up a liquid (a sort of a petroleum ) that flows in tubes which are positioned at the center.
The benefit of the thermal reflector systems is that because they originally produce heat, this heat may be stored, and it is an important consideration if you need to create electricity . Photovoltaic panels, on the other hand, create electricity immediately, which makes storing electricity less effective.
The Negev Energy project uses a molten salt storage system that lets it hold and supply additional 4.5 hours of fresh energy daily, at full capacity, even after sunset or during overcast days. The yearly average of daily operations is 11 hours, the business says on its website.
A gleaming white elephant in the desert?
The most glaring disadvantage of the glistening new thermal solar project is the fact that the electricity produced by the Negev Energy plant to the next 25 decades, according to the tender process, will be in a price that’s already as much as six times that of competing solar power plants.
It is because, over the years — since the initiation of the Israeli tender for the solar plants in 2008 and up-to the time when this kind of power has actually come on the web — thermal solar technology, once considered an integral trend in renewable energy, have become obsolete, and the prices of electricity production have remained inactive, whereas photovoltaic technology has progressed in strides. This has made power production from the solar panels considerably more efficient and thus much more economical.
When Israel issued the tenders to set up the solar energy plants in Ashalim, the price of electricity produced by the thermal solar technology was almost identical to that generated by photovoltaic technology, at approximately NIS 1.0 ($0.28) per kilowatt hour (kWh). This could be supplied at a fixed cost to Israel Electric Corp., Negev Energy’s only client, for a span of 25 years.
It is standard in such tenders to ensure that there is a buyer for all of the energy produced, otherwise the jobs wouldn’t have the ability to raise the funding required to make them happen.
Meanwhile, since costs of photovoltaic energy have plunged, now competing plants utilizing these technologies may sell power to Israel at prices as low as NIS 0.15 per kWh, according to The Electricity Authority. This raises the overall electricity costs for the end customers.
In April, Calcalist reported the entire energy cost for the consumer increases by some 2% due to the greater prices of Israel’s two thermal solar power plants.
At the time of bidding for the Ashalim tenders, the solar market in Israel was at its early stages, and electricity tariffs for solar energy stations were about NIS 1 per kWh, the Finance Ministry said in an email to The Times of Israel. So, the most precise method to compare costs is to take a look at the historical price, once the tender was closed, rather than compare the cost currently received by plants utilizing photovoltaic technology, the ministry said in an email.
“The solar purchase for photovoltaic solar power plants has been significantly reduced through the years and is the most prominent technology today, but solar thermal technology has benefits over photovoltaic technology as it enables energy storage, which helps manage the domestic electricity system by generating energy at the centre even during no-sun hours,” the ministry said.
Steinitz also addressed the cost issue on Thursday. “Today, photovoltaic technology is more economical” than thermal solar energy,” he said. “And Israel is dedicated to what was decided and agreed upon,” within the tenders.
Had the authorities stopped the tender, and it might have needed to pay billions of shekels in fines to the tender winners, Calcalist said in April.
Eran Doron, the mayor of the Ramat HaNegev Regional Council, stated that the participation the plant has had on the area, providing jobs to locals, both Jews, Muslims and Bedouin, and relocating some 140 engineers and engineers into the region, cannot be measured, ” he said.
“They state thermal solar energy is not relevant, but it’s too early to state ,” he added. “We are producing here energy until midnight.”
At the peak of the construction work, some 1,300 employees worked in the plant, officials said, with some 300 coming out of the regional Bedouin community, who underwent training to the occupation. The plant today employs 70 employees.
TSK sets up turn key projects and provides technological solutions for power plants utilizing both renewable and conventional resources.
