1,000 Acres of Giant Solar Mirrors to Rise in Israel's Desert, Finally
by Stacy Feldman - Apr 8th, 2008
After seven years of dead-end negotiations, Israel will soon turn 1,000 acres in the Negev Desert into giant solar thermal stations.
The $700 million enterprise will comprise two plants to supply 250 megawatts of power in total, equal to 2.5 percent of the nation’s electricity needs.
And it’s slated for solar stardom.
When the plants come online in 2011, the project will be one of the biggest concentrating solar power (CSP) operations in the world. It will be a lucrative deal for the chosen builder, and an international bidding frenzy over who gets the contract could be just around the corner.
The Israeli government issued a preliminary tender for the venture at the end of February. And some of solar’s heaviest hitters are expected to compete. They include Portugal's Energia de Portugal, or EDP, and the Israel-based solar giants Solel and Luz II.
The government will seal the deal by the end of the year. It’s about time.
The Ashalim project was first proposed in 2001. At that time, the Israeli Cabinet had decided that 2 percent of the country's energy must be renewable. That's equal to some 200 megawatts, with most of that slated to come from the sun.
However, the deadline has passed, and Israel is producing a mere 5 megawatts from solar. And now it's chasing even more ambitious goals. The latest? About 2,000 megawaGlobtts from clean energy sources by 2020.
Puzzling.
Israel houses two of the world's leading companies in the research and development of solar-powered generating stations. Solel is one of them. It recently inked a deal with PG&E to build 533 megawatts of solar power, while Oregon is now trying to recruit the company, too. (Incidentally, in an interview with SolveClimate, Kenny Kleinerman, Solel's Manager of Marketing Communications, said the company was reviewing the RFP for the Negev project but refused to give any comment on whether a bid was pending.)
Meanwhile, BrightSource Energy, a parent company of Israel's Luz II, has signed its own contract with PG&E for 500 megawatts.
(Update: It has been discovered that the two leading Israeli companies in the sector do not meet the threshold requirements for the tender, according to an April 14 Globes article.)
All of which has been great news for the American West. No complaints here. But what about Israel?
The Negev Desert averages about 330 sunny days a year. And the country has no domestic energy alternatives. The potential for solar is astounding, explains Professor David Faiman, director of Ben-Gurion University's National Solar Energy Center:
Solar energy plants in the Negev could theoretically produce all the country's power on 225 square kilometers of suitable land.
And yet, the nation’s been extremely slow to harness local solar thermal knowledge for its own needs. Until now, that is. The Ashalim project could mark the beginning of Israel's domestic solar revolution.
And it's not alone.
Oil Drum reports that there are now over 5,800 megawatts of solar thermal plants in their planning stages, including several in other desert nations. There are plants coming online in Abu Dhabi, Egypt and Morocco, and then there's DESERTEC. That's the mammoth initiative to turn vast swathes of the North African desert into a solar power source for Europe.
And there are hopes for the technology to be a force in America, too, far beyond the West Coast.
On March 6, 2008, Ausra, an Australian developer of solar thermal technology that has moved to the US, dropped this bomb on the solar world: Solar thermal power could supply over 90 percent of the U.S. grid. Here are the crux of its findings:
This new study shows that our daily and annual energy needs closely match the energy production potential from solar thermal power plants with heat energy storage, and our models show solar thermal power will cost less than continuing to import oil.
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