Sun, Jan 08, 2017 page15

• Israel harnessing sunshine with world’s tallest solar tower

  • BY isaac scharf and alon bernstein / AP, ASHALIM, Israel
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  In sunny Israel, solar energy supplies only a small percentage of the nation’s power needs, leaving it far behind countries with cloudier and colder climates.

  Now the fledgling solar industry is trying to make a leap forward with a large-scale project boasting the world’s tallest solar tower, as a symbol of Israel’s renewal energy ambitions. With Israel traditionally running its economy on fossil fuels, renewable energy has long been hobbled by bureaucracy and a lack of incentives.

  However, the country is starting to make an effort, setting a goal of generating 10 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, up from the current 2.5 percent.

  

  Heliostats encircle a solar tower in the Negev desert near Ashalim in Israel on Dec. 22 last year.

  Photo: AP

  The Ashalim project, deep in the Negev desert, is made up of three plots, with a fourth planned for the future, each with a different solar technology. Together, the fields will be Israel’s largest renewable energy project when completed by 2018. They are set to generate some 310 megawatts of power, about 1.6 percent of the country’s energy needs — enough for about 130,000 households, or about 5 percent of Israel’s population, according to Israel’s Electricity Authority.

  “It’s the most significant single building block in Israel’s commitment to carbon dioxide reduction and renewable energy,’’ said Eran Gartner, chief executive of Megalim Solar Power Ltd, which is building one part of the project.

  The centerpiece is a solar tower that would be the world’s tallest at 250m.

  Solar towers use a method differing from the more common photovoltaic solar panels, which convert sunlight directly into electricity. Instead, towers use a solar-thermal method: Thousands of mirrors focus the sun’s rays onto the tower, heating a boiler that creates steam to spin a turbine and generate electricity.

  Encircling the Ashalim tower are 50,000 mirrors, known as heliostats, in a shimmering blanket of glass over the desert. The tower is so tall because the panels were squeezed together to maximize use of the land — and the closer the panels are the taller the tower must be, Gartner said.

  Another solar-thermal plot at Ashalim will be able to store energy even when the sun goes down. A third plot will use photovoltaic solar technology to produce energy.

  Yaron Szilas, CEO of Shikun & Binui Renewable Energy, the lead developer of the second solar-thermal plot, said combining the three technologies was a wise move because each has its own advantage. The amount of electricity it produces will be comparable to large-scale solar fields in California and Chile.

  There are around a dozen solar tower fields around the world, the largest being the Ivanpah plant in California with about 170,000 heliostats around three 140m-tall towers.

  Israel has developed some of the world’s most advanced solar energy equipment and enjoys a nearly endless supply of sunshine. However, Israeli solar companies, frustrated by government bureaucracy, have mostly taken their expertise abroad.

  Countries with cooler climates have outpaced Israel. Germany, for example, gets nearly 30 percent of its energy from renewable sources.

  “Israel has a potential to be a sunshine superpower,” said Leehee Goldenberg, director of the department of economy and environment at the Israel Union for Environmental Defense, a non-governmental organization.

  Despite some steps in the right direction, “Israel’s government hasn’t really been pushing to reach its small goals regarding solar energy,” she said.

  Israel has often been reluctant to hand out huge parcels of land, a necessity for large-scale solar power production, Gartner said.

  Large projects also demand access to state-owned infrastructure like gas, water and electricity, and connecting to those utilities out in remote plants in the Negev desert often takes time.

  The developers in the Ashalim project say they want Israel to step up its renewable energy goals.

  “With all the sun that we have and how progressed we are in technology, these goals are very, very, very modest,” Szilas said. “But these are the goals that were set, and we are working toward it.”
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