The switch was flipped this week as California’s Ivanpah solar thermal power plant went live. The 392 megawatt concentrating solar plant (CSP) is now delivering renewables to power the equivalent of 140,000 homes in California. After a long journey lasting decades of development, fighting regulations, manoeuvring around turtle conservationists, burning birds may be the latest problem.
It will be the fifth largest solar plant in the world when done. The earth revolves around the sun, and so does the green-tech industry. Some of the earliest pioneers of solar energy started in Israel 30 years ago with the company Luz.
When BrightSource withdrew its IPO this month, the death knell for solar was sounded, as always. The truth is more mundane. According to the always inquisitive Katie Fehrenbacher over at GigaOm who managed to snag a Q&A with the company, BrightSource just doesn’t necessarily need the extra money right now. Its Ivanpah solar thermal project is already fully funded […]
Concentrated solar power company BrightSource doesn’t wear its Israeli identity on its sleeve. “We’re a U.S. company with Israeli engineering, not an Israeli company. It’s a nuance but important to get right,” Keely Wachs, senior director of corporate communications for BrightSource, wrote in an email message. And with an American President and CEO named John […]
Why does Israel so lag Arab neighbors like Morocco and Egypt in its renewable energy production? I do not understand how the nation that invented CSP solar thermal - the solar energy that now powers much of the worlds gigantic utility-scale solar plants - can be just now announcing some tiny 35 MW solar project as its "largest ever!" - and Spain's Solaer group that is supposedly to build it; doesn't even have a website - when Morocco is building its first 500 MW plant with international energy giant Siemens. Can anyone tell me what's going on? I have never lived in the Middle East region, unlike the rest of the local bloggers here at GreenProphet - perhaps I'm missing something that is rather obvious to the rest of you. In the US, only our fossil states are as backward in renewable energy development.
With a 35 meter high sun-ray collection tower and about 50 mirrors positioned to direct the sun, Israel’s AORA is about to flip the switch on its latest solar power plant in Spain. The company created a huge buzz in Israel in 2009 when it was the first solar energy company to connect to the […]
Considered by some as the father of solar thermal electricity generation, Newton Becker, was the founding investor and Chairman of the Board of Luz International – the company that went on to become what BrightSource is today. He died Monday in LA at age 83. Back when, Luz became the largest solar company in the […]
Another world’s first for the Israeli-born solar power giant that pioneered solar thermal. BrightSource Energy announced this week that they could chop down the size of their giant 750 MW project in California by 200 MW and yet still make the same 4,000 gigawatt-hours a year of power they are contractually required to produce for California, by […]
BrightSource solar thermal illustration: Better than using the sun to soften oil BrightSource Energy, the California based solar thermal energy company whose technology as innovated in Israel, and whose solar “star” was even touted by US President Barack Obama, is now in financial hot water again as its joint oil recovery project with giant energy […]
$10 million is the lucky number for two Israeli cleantech companies and Al Gore. Tigo’s Maximizer can add hundreds of hours worth of sun to your utility bill. A fund that Al Gore’s chaired has already invested $10 million in an Israeli cleantech company – GreenRoad, a company that has a software solution to manage […]
Israeli Solar energy company BrightSource is the child, but the real father of solar thermal technology. SEC filings show BrightSource Energy Inc has raised $122.5 million in its fifth round of financing, according to Israel’s Globes.The company says it raised the capital in shares and warrants, as part of a planned $125 million offering. BrightSource […]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34o8RU5g8XY[/youtube]Cheesy patriotic music and all, BrightSource breaks ground last week in California. Click on the video above to see it. It’s the moment the world has been waiting for: the Ivanpah solar energy, massive 392-MW solar farm, has broke ground! Being built beside the Ivanpah Dry Lake, in San Bernardino County, California, the plant is […]
BrightSource’s latest deals, Tel Aviv’s light rail, EUREKA in Israel and more headlines related to Israeli cleantech and the environment. Innowattech and the Israel National Roads Company (INRC) have developed a new technology that can detect overloaded trucks without their having to stop. Natural building techniques are being reintroduced to Bedouins in Israel’s south and […]
It’s no secret that Israeli cleantech companies and their products are hot commodities. Now in: the Cleantech Group just announced their global list, the Global Cleantech 100 for the second year running, and it’s no surprise that Israeli companies earned 8 of the 100 spots (I correct myself for the 7 I had originally posted). Six […]
SolarEdge recently secured $25 million in VC funding that it will use to maintain its lead in the PV optimizer market despite steep competition from companies within Israel and abroad. Unaffected by a global decrease in venture capital investments in cleantech, Israeli solar energy company SolarEdge has successfully raised $25 million in a Series C round […]