Ormat Technologies, Inc. is an international company based in Reno, Nevada, United States. Ormat supplies alternative and renewable geothermal energy technology. The company has built over 190 power plants and installed over 3,200 MW. As of January 2021 it owns and operates 933 MW of geothermal and recovered energy based power plants. Ormat has supplied over 1000 turbochargers worldwide: North America, South America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. The company's products also include turbines, generators, and heat exchangers.
The company's share is a dual stock traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange since 1991 and on the New York Stock Exchange since 2004 under the symbol ORA, and is part of the Tel Aviv 35 Index and the Tel Aviv Tech-Elite Index [3]. The company's main production facilities are located in Yavne, Israel.
History
Ormat was established in 1965 as Ormat Turbines Ltd. (later renamed Ormat Industries), in Yavne, Israel, by engineer Lucien Bronicki, the company's chairman and CTO until 2014, and his wife Yehudit "Dita" Bronicki, who served as CEO until 2014.[1]
In the late 1950s Lucien Bronicki worked in a government physics laboratory, where he developed a turbine to produce electricity from a range of energy sources, including solar; the process is known as the organic Rankine cycle, which he co-developed with Harry Zvi Tabor. He retired from the lab to commercialize his ideas . In its early years the company focused exclusively on manufacturing power generation equipment.[2]
The 1970s energy crisis increased interest in efficient generation technology. The firm obtained financial assistance from the Israeli government and raised capital from private investors to build one of the world's first solar-driven power stations. However the power station was not economically viable and was abandoned in 1988.[3]
During the 1980s the firm developed generation systems utilizing recovered energy, i.e. heat emitted during industrial processes. It also applied its technology to generate electricity from geothermal sources.
In 1986, the firm designed and supplied geothermal power systems to the Kawerau Power Station in New Zealand. Since then, it has built 13 geothermal power plants in that country.[4] In 1989, the firm supplied geothermal equipment for the regional heating system at SudurnesIceland, utilizing the abundant local geothermal resources to provide heating for 20,000 people.[5]
In the 1990s the firm decided not only to provide power generation equipment, but also to own and operate alternative and renewable energy power stations.
In 1991, the firm, then as Ormat Industries, became listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. In 1992, Ormat acquired a controlling stake of Bet Shemesh Engines, a manufacturer of parts for jet engines, that also overhauls, maintains and assembles jet engines. In 2005, Ormat sold its shares in the company.[6]
In 2004, Ormat Technologies, completed an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange raising $100 million. Ormat Technologies was founded in 1994 as a US subsidiary of Ormat Industries. Following the initial public offering, Ormat Industries was restructured as a holding company that was still listed in the exchange, while shifting all its operations to the subsidiary Ormat Technologies.[7]
In 2006, the firm received for the first time, an order for to supply equipment for a geothermal power plant in Germany.[citation needed]
In June 2014, Dita Bronicki resigned from her position as CEO and was appointed to serve on the board of directors of Ormat Technologies. Yoram Bronicki was elected to serve as chairman of the board of directors of Ormat Technologies.
The company's Board of Directors selected Isaac Angel to serve as CEO of Ormat Technologies. Angel joined the company in April for an overlapping procedure and began serving as CEO in July 2014.
In November 2015, Dita and Yoram Bronicki resigned from the company's board of directors, and Gilon Beck was appointed chairman of the board.
As of May 2016, the FIMI fund and Bronicki Investment Fund were the company's largest shareholders, holding 14.83% and 7.23% of the company's shares, respectively. The rest of the company's shares are held by institutional bodies and by the public.
In May 2017, the Japanese company Orix acquired the FIMI and Bronicki Investment Fund's share in Ormat for $627 million.
In July 2020, Doron Blachar, the company's former CFO since 2013, was appointed as the company's CEO, while Isaac Angel was appointed chairman of the board.
An Ormat Energy Converter (OEC) at a geothermal generation power plant, in Landau, Germany
Thermal energy
The firm's core technology is the Ormat Energy Converter power generation unit. It converts low and medium temperature heat into electrical energy, with low or zero emission of CO2 and pollutants. The main components are a vaporizer/preheater, turbo-generator, air-cooled or water-cooled condenser, feed pump and controls. The firm has installed more than 900 MW of geothermal and recovered energy generation (REG) power units, based on this technology.[citation needed]
The technology is optimized for use in geothermal energy generation, and the firm is the third largest geothermal producer in the United States. The technology is also suitable for recovered energy power generation, which converts waste heat from industrial processes into electricity that can be used on site or sold to power generation utilities. The firm's recovered energy technology was deployed in projects in Germany, Canada, India, USA, New Zealand[8] and Japan.[citation needed]
Solar energy
In the 1980s Ormat built and operated one of the world's first power stations to produce electricity from solar energy, located just north of the Dead Sea in Israel.[3] The plant utilized a solar pond, a large-scale solar thermal energy collector with integral heat storage. It was the largest operating solar pond ever built for electricity generation and operated until 1988. It had an area of 210,000 m2 and gave an electrical output of 5 MW.[9]
After the decommissioning of the solar pond project, the firm was not active in the solar energy market until its[when?] entry into the Solar PV market.
Oil sands
Ormat's former parent company, Ormat Industries Ltd., developed an energy-efficient technology, OrCrude, for extracting crude oil from oil sands. The process is claimed to be more efficient than other technologies as it includes gasification, which substantially reduces the requirement for natural gas, typically the largest input cost in an in-situ oil sands project. The technology is used in the Long Lake project, a former joint venture between Nexen and OPTI Canada.[10] In 2010, Ormat Industries sold all its holdings (5.1%) in OPTI Canada. In 2011, OPTI Canada was acquired by CNOOC Luxembourg S.à r.l, an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of CNOOC Limited.
Spin offs
Ormat has been involved in the establishment and development of several companies:
Orbotech develops and manufactures automated optical inspection (AOI) systems for bare and assembled printed circuit boards and flat panel displays. The company's systems, imaging and computer-aided manufacturing technologies enable electronic manufacturers to achieve the increased yields and throughput essential for electronics production.
Orad Hi-Tec Systems Ltd. develops video and real-time image processing technologies for TV broadcasting, Internet, production studio and sports events.
Related Research Articles
Geothermal energy is the thermal energy in the Earth's crust which originates from the formation of the planet and from radioactive decay of materials in currently uncertain but possibly roughly equal proportions. The high temperature and pressure in Earth's interior cause some rock to melt and solid mantle to behave plastically. This results in parts of the mantle convecting upward since it is lighter than the surrounding rock. Temperatures at the core–mantle boundary can reach over 4000 °C (7200 °F).
Solar thermal energy (STE) is a form of energy and a technology for harnessing solar energy to generate thermal energy for use in industry, and in the residential and commercial sectors.
The Kalina cycle, developed by Alexander Kalina, is a thermodynamic process for converting thermal energy into usable mechanical power.
The potential for exploiting geothermal energy in the United Kingdom on a commercial basis was initially examined by the Department of Energy in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis. Several regions of the country were identified, but interest in developing them was lost as petroleum prices fell. Although the UK is not actively volcanic, a large heat resource is potentially available via shallow geothermal ground source heat pumps, shallow aquifers and deep saline aquifers in the mesozoic basins of the UK. Geothermal energy is plentiful beneath the UK, although it is not readily accessible currently except in specific locations.
Geothermal energy was first used for electric power production in the United States in 1960. The Geysers in Sonoma and Lake counties, California was developed into the largest geothermal steam electrical plant in the world, at 1,517 megawatts. Other geothermal steam fields operate in the western US and Alaska.
Geothermal power is electrical power generated from geothermal energy. Technologies in use include dry steam power stations, flash steam power stations and binary cycle power stations. Geothermal electricity generation is currently used in 26 countries, while geothermal heating is in use in 70 countries.
The Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) is named for its use of an organic, high molecular mass fluid with a liquid-vapor phase change, or boiling point, occurring at a lower temperature than the water-steam phase change. The fluid allows Rankine cycle heat recovery from lower temperature sources such as biomass combustion, industrial waste heat, geothermal heat, solar ponds etc. The low-temperature heat is converted into useful work, that can itself be converted into electricity.
Geothermal power in New Zealand is a small but significant part of the energy generation capacity of the country, providing approximately 17% of the country's electricity with installed capacity of over 900MW. New Zealand, like only a small number of other countries worldwide, has numerous geothermal sites that could be developed for exploitation, and also boasts some of the earliest large-scale use of geothermal energy in the world.
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 Olkaria III Geothermal Power Station, also known as 'OrPower 4' is a large geothermal power plant in Kenya, having an installed electricity generating capacity of 139 megawatts (186,000 hp).
Enel Green Power S.p.A. is an Italian multinational renewable energy corporation, headquartered in Rome. The company was formed as a subsidiary of the power generation firm Enel in December 2008. It is present with assets in operation or under construction in 21 countries and carries out development activities in a further 5 countries on five continents generating energy from hydropower, wind, solar and geothermal sources. As of 2021, it manages a capacity of 54,2 GW and has over 1200 plants worldwide. From 4 November 2010 to 31 March 2016, the company was listed on the FTSE MIB index of the Milan Stock Exchange, as well as on the Madrid Stock Exchange and the Barcelona, Bilbao, and Valencia regional Stock Exchanges.
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.
This article describes energy and electricity production, consumption, import and export in Kenya. Kenya's current effective installed electricity capacity is 2,651 MW, with peak demand of 1,912 MW, as of November 2019. At that time, demand was rising at a calculated rate of 3.6 percent annually, given that peak demand was 1,770 MW, at the beginning of 2018. Electricity supply is mostly generated by renewable sources with the majority coming from geothermal power and hydroelectricity.
Most of Kenya's electricity is generated by renewable energy sources. Access to reliable, affordable, and sustainable energy is one of the 17 main goals of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Development of the energy sector is also critical to help Kenya achieve the goals in Kenya Vision 2030 to become a newly industrializing, middle-income country. With an installed power capacity of 2,819 MW, Kenya currently generates 826 MW hydroelectric power, 828 geothermal power, 749 MW thermal power, 331 MW wind power, and the rest from solar and biomass sources. Kenya is the largest geothermal energy producer in Africa and also has the largest wind farm on the continent. In March 2011, Kenya opened Africa’s first carbon exchange to promote investments in renewable energy projects. Kenya has also been selected as a pilot country under the Scaling-Up Renewable Energy Programmes in Low Income Countries Programme to increase deployment of renewable energy solutions in low-income countries. Despite significant strides in renewable energy development, about a quarter of the Kenyan population still lacks access to electricity, necessitating policy changes to diversify the energy generation mix and promote public-private partnerships for financing renewable energy projects.
Renewable energy in South Africa is energy generated in South Africa from renewable resources, those that naturally replenish themselves—such as sunlight, wind, tides, waves, rain, biomass, and geothermal heat. Renewable energy focuses on four core areas: electricity generation, air and water heating/cooling, transportation, and rural energy services. The energy sector in South Africa is an important component of global energy regimes due to the country's innovation and advances in renewable energy. South Africa's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is ranked as moderate and its per capita emission rate is higher than the global average. Energy demand within the country is expected to rise steadily and double by 2025.
The Puna Geothermal Venture (PGV) is a geothermal energy power plant on the island of Hawaii, the largest island in the state of Hawaii. The plant was shut down shortly after the start of the May 2018 lower Puna eruption, and resumed power generation in November 2020. The eruption had caused lava to flow over a PGV power substation, a warehouse and at least three geothermal wells that had been preventatively quenched and capped when lava fountains erupted nearby, eventually also cutting off road access.
The Mammoth Geothermal Complex is a complex of 3 geothermal power stations located at Casa Diablo Hot Springs about 3 miles (4.8 km) east of Mammoth Lakes, California. The complex is owned by Ormat and operated by its subsidiary Mammoth Pacific.
↑ Carl Nielson, Aliakbar Akbarzedeh, John Andrews, Humberto R Becerra L and Peter Golding, 'The History of Solar Pond Science & Technology', Proceedings of the International Solar Energy Society, 2005.
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