Arava Power Company

Last updated

Arava Power Company
IndustrySolar fields
Founded2006
FounderDavid Rosenblatt, Ketura through Ed Hofland, Yosef Abramowitz (active until 2010)
HeadquartersArava, Negev,
Ketura
,
Israel
Website www.aravapower.com

Arava Power Company (APC) Arava Power is a utility-scale renewables Developer-IPP that pioneered Israeli utility-scale PV market. The company founded in 2006 on Ketura in the Arava Valley. On June 5, 2011, APC inaugurated Israel's first medium-sized solar field, Ketura Sun. The field stretches over 80 dunams (8 hectares or 20 acres) of land and has an installed power of 4.95MW. [1] As Arava Power installs solar fields only on land zoned solely for agricultural or industrial use.

Contents

In the Ketura Sun project, photovoltaic (PV) solar panel from Suntech company were used, in collaboration with Siemens Israel. Arava's mission is to supply Israel with 10% of its energy needs through clean, renewable solar energy.

History

Arava Power Company began as a partnership with Kibbutz Ketura. [2] Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion, was an inspiring figure for the vision of the company. In 1956, Ben Gurion said: "The largest and most impressive source of energy in our world and the source of life for every plant and animal, yet a source so little used by mankind today is the sun... Solar energy will continue to flow toward us almost indefinitely."

In August 2008, Siemens Project Ventures invested $15 Million in the Arava Power Company. [3] [4]

In November 2010, the Minister of National Infrastructure, Uzi Landau, signed a landmark Power Purchase Agreement with Ketura Sun Company, a joint venture between Kibbutz Ketura and Arava worth an estimated 250 Million NIS. The agreement is valid for twenty years and guarantees that the energy produced at Ketura Sun will be transferred to the Israel Electric Corporation's power lines. It is the first PPA in Israel with a solar energy company. [5]

In December 2010, Bank Hapoalim signed an agreement with Arava Power to extend a loan of 80 Million NIS to APC in order to fund the Ketura Sun project (valued at ~100 Million NIS). [6]

On June 5, 2011, APC inaugurated Israel's first solar field, Ketura Sun. [7]

On May 22, 2012 Arava Power announced that it had reached financial close on an additional 58.5 MW for 8 projects to be built in the Arava and the Negev valued at 780 Million NIS or approximately $204 Million. [8]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ketura, Israel</span> Place in Southern, Israel

Ketura is a kibbutz in southern Israel. Located north of Eilat in the Aravah Valley, it falls under the jurisdiction of Hevel Eilot Regional Council. In 2022 it had a population of 509.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arava Institute for Environmental Studies</span> Israeli study and research institute

The Arava Institute for Environmental Studies is an academic studies and research institute located in Kibbutz Ketura on the Israeli side of the Arava Valley. Following the understanding that "nature knows no borders", the Arava Institute's mission is to advance cross-border environmental cooperation in the face of political conflict.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Suntech Power</span> Chinese producer of solar panels

Suntech Power Holdings Co., Ltd. is a Chinese producer of solar panels, with 2,000 MW (2,700,000 hp) of annual production capacity by the end of 2011. It is headquartered in Wuxi, Jiangsu. Shunfeng International Clean Energy Limited, a HKSE listed renewable energy investment and Independent Power Producer company, acquired Suntech in 2014 following Suntech's bankruptcy in 2013. With offices or production facilities in every major market, Suntech has delivered more than 13,000,000 solar panels to thousands of companies in more than 80 countries around the world. As the center for the company's global operations, Suntech headquarters, in Wuxi, China, features the world's largest building integrated solar facade.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solar power by country</span>

Many countries and territories have installed significant solar power capacity into their electrical grids to supplement or provide an alternative to conventional energy sources. Solar power plants use one of two technologies:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mayumana troupe</span> Israeli dance troupe

Mayumana is an Israeli dance troupe that combines dance, song and percussion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beit HaArava</span> Israeli settlement in the West Bank

Beit HaArava is an Israeli settlement and kibbutz in the West Bank. Located near the Dead Sea and Jericho at the eponymous Beit HaArava Junction, the intersection of Highway 1 and Highway 90, it falls under the jurisdiction of Megilot Regional Council. In 2022 it had a population of 508.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elifaz, Israel</span> Kibbutz in southern Israel

Elifaz is a kibbutz in the Arava valley, near Eilat, in the far south of Israel. It is under the jurisdiction of the Hevel Eilot Regional Council. In 2022 it had a population of 170.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solar power in the United States</span>

Solar power includes solar farms as well as local distributed generation, mostly on rooftops and increasingly from community solar arrays. In 2023, utility-scale solar power generated 164.5 terawatt-hours (TWh), or 3.9% of electricity in the United States. Total solar generation that year, including estimated small-scale photovoltaic generation, was 238 TWh.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BrightSource Energy</span>

BrightSource Energy, Inc. is an Oakland, California based, corporation that designs, builds, finances, and operates utility-scale solar power plants. Greentech Media ranked BrightSource as one of the top 10 greentech startups in the world in 2008.

SunEdison, Inc. is a renewable energy company headquartered in the U.S. In addition to developing, building, owning, and operating solar power plants and wind energy plants, it also manufactures high-purity polysilicon, monocrystalline silicon ingots, silicon wafers, solar modules, solar energy systems, and solar module racking systems. Originally a silicon-wafer manufacturer established in 1959 as the Monsanto Electronic Materials Company, the company was sold by Monsanto in 1989.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">California Valley Solar Ranch</span> Photovoltaic power plant in the Carrizo Plain, northeast of California Valley.

The California Valley Solar Ranch (CVSR) is a 250 megawatt (MWAC) photovoltaic power plant in the Carrizo Plain, northeast of California Valley. The project is owned by NRG Energy, and SunPower is the EPC contractor and technology provider. The project constructed on 1,966 acres (796 ha) of a 4,365-acre (1,766 ha) site of former grazing land. It is utilizing high-efficiency, crystalline PV panels designed and manufactured by SunPower. The project includes up to 88,000 SunPower solar tracking devices to hold PV panels that track the sun across the sky.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solar power in Israel</span>

The use of solar energy began in Israel in the 1950s with the development by Levi Yissar of a solar water heater to address the energy shortages that plagued the new country. By 1967 around 5% of water of households were solar heated and 50,000 solar heaters had been sold. With the 1970s oil crisis, Harry Zvi Tabor developed the prototype of the solar water heater now used in over 90% of Israeli homes. There are over 1.3 million solar water heaters installed as a result of mandatory solar water heating regulations.

The Davidson County Solar Farm is a 17.2 megawatt solar power station located in the heart of North Carolina, near the community of Linwood. SunEdison built the array of photovoltaic panels, and Duke Energy buys all the output from the solar farm. The solar farm is located on North Carolina Highway 47, off New Jersey Church Road.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ashalim Power Station</span> Concentrated solar thermal power station in Israel

The Ashalim power station is a concentrated solar power station in the Negev desert near the kibbutz of Ashalim, south of the district city of Be'er Sheva in Israel. It consists of three plots with three different technologies the station combines 3 kinds of energy: solar thermal energy, photovoltaic energy, and natural gas.

Amonix, Inc. was a solar power system developer based in Seal Beach, California. The company manufactured concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) products designed for installation in sunny and dry climates. CPV products convert sunlight into electrical energy in the same way that conventional solar photovoltaic technology does, except that they use optics to focus the solar radiation before the light is absorbed by solar cells. According to a comparative study of energy production of solar technologies, CPV systems require no water for energy production and produce more energy per megawatt (MW) installed than traditional PV systems. Amonix had nearly 70 megawatts of CPV solar power systems deployed globally, including Southwestern U.S. and Spain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ketura Sun</span> Israels first commercial solar field.

Ketura Sun is Israel’s first commercial solar field. Built in early 2011 by Arava Power Company on Kibbutz Ketura, it covers 20 acres and is expected to produce to 4.95 megawatts. It has the first automatic solar panel cleaning system in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yosef Abramowitz</span> Israeli businessman

Yosef Abramowitz is an Israeli-American environmentalist and solar energy advocate. He is president and CEO of Energiya Global Capital as well as co-founder of the Arava Power Company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Enlight Renewable Energy</span>

Enlight Renewable Energy is a publicly traded company, headquartered in Israel, that builds and operates solar and wind power facilities. Its shares are traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Photovoltaic power station</span> Large-scale photovoltaic system

A photovoltaic power station, also known as a solar park, solar farm, or solar power plant, is a large-scale grid-connected photovoltaic power system designed for the supply of merchant power. They are different from most building-mounted and other decentralized solar power because they supply power at the utility level, rather than to a local user or users. Utility-scale solar is sometimes used to describe this type of project.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Energy in Israel</span>

Most energy in Israel comes from fossil fuels. The country's total primary energy demand is significantly higher than its total primary energy production, relying heavily on imports to meet its energy needs. Total primary energy consumption was 304 TWh (1.037 quad) in 2016, or 26.2 million tonne of oil equivalent.

References

  1. "Arava Power Company". Archived from the original on July 7, 2011. Retrieved June 27, 2011.
  2. Arava region of Israel about to be 100 percent solar-powered, Jerusalem Post
  3. "Siemens to invest $15 million in Arava Power". Oklahoman.com. Associated Press. August 28, 2009. Archived from the original on March 31, 2021. Retrieved March 23, 2021.
  4. "Siemens invests $ 15 million in Israeli solar company Arava Power" (PDF) (Press release). Siemens AG. August 28, 2009. Retrieved June 27, 2011.
  5. Moskowitz, Ira; Prophet, The Green. "Israel signs landmark solar energy agreement with Arava Power". jewishchronicle.timesofisrael.com. Retrieved March 23, 2021.
  6. Waldoks, Ehud Zion (December 14, 2010). "Construction To Begin On Israel's First Solar Field". The Jerusalem Post. Israel. Retrieved June 26, 2011.
  7. Levinson, Charles (December 14, 2010). "In Israel, Big Solar Field Begins to Rise". Wall Street Journal. ISSN   0099-9660 . Retrieved March 23, 2021.
  8. Roca, Marc (May 22, 2012), "Arava Closes Funding For $204 Million Israeli Solar Plants", Bloomberg, retrieved June 3, 2012