As a result, a  giant pipeline is being built to unite the island’s northern sector to Turkey as a partial solution.

Water shortages in the southern part of the Island, known as the Republic of Cyprus, will be partially alleviated by a deal with Israel’s Mekorot water company that resulted in the construction of a large desalination plant in the city of Limassol. The just inaugurated plant will be able to produce between 40,000 and 60,000 cubic meters of fresh water per day for residents of Limassol, the Cyprus Republic’s largest city.

“In a challenging reality, in which many countries are facing an existing or expected shortage of water, the solutions which Mekorot has to offer are of great importance,” said Mekorot CEO Shimon Ben-Hamo. He added that Israel is happy to be able to be help a country like Cyprus, which like Israel is “small in size, but big on vision.”

While the cost of desalination is not cheap, it has become one of the most popular methods used to produce fresh water for an island nation that already has four other desalination plants.

“The natural water resources are insufficient to cover the increasing water needs, thus, gradually we have adopted the policy of using non-conventional water resources to ensure independence from weather conditions and consequently adequate quantities of water for our country,” said Cypriot Agriculture Minister Nicos Kouyialis.

Israel is a pioneer developer of fresh water conservation and production methods; including desalination and recycling of waste water; especially what is known as “grey water”.

While not the best environmental solution, desalination has often been called a “necessary evil” due to its high costs and potential environmental risks.

More articles on water issues in Cyprus and elsewhere in the region:

World’s longest undersea water pipeline uniting Turkey to Cyprus

This Desalination Infoqraphic is Like Taking Climate Change Advice from Shell

Israel’s Mekorot Builds Global Connections Through Water

Water Problems in Cyprus Worse Than Those of Israel, Syria and Lebanon

Photo of Cyprus Dry Lakebed by BBC/AP:

The post Cyprus gets new desalination plant with Mekorot Israel’s know-how appeared first on Green Prophet.

Ormat Technologies, one of the world’s leading geothermal green energy power plant companies, has already tapped the earth’s geothermal energy sources in Europe,  the USA, Russia, Indonesia, Central and South America, and a 100 Megawatt plant in New Zealand.

The company’s geothermal energy expertise is becoming so accepted that its rising stocks are a boon for Israel’s Geothermal industry.

A new Ormat geothermal plant project, the Don A. Campbell Geothermal Power Plant, has just been completed in Mineral County Nevada in the USA. As reported by Market Watch, the plant is producing 16 Net Megawatts of electric power.

The project is receiving a full payment rate of $99 per megawatt hour with no annual escalation under the terms of a Power Purchase Agreement made with Southern California Public Power Authority (SCPPA). SCPPA is reselling this power to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), one of California’s largest consumer power entities.

Ormat already has several geothermal power plants operating in the western United States, with three operating in California itself. One of Ormat’s oldest completed geothermal plants is a 5.2 Mega Watt plant operating in Svartsengi Iceland, a location where geothermal power literally “spews out of the ground”.

Ormat’s largest geothermal plant to date is the 100 MW Ngatamariki geothermal power plant in New Zealand.

An even larger geothermal project is planned for the Indonesian island of Sumatra. When completed, it will provide around 330 Megawatts of electric power.

Read more on Ormat geothermal power plant projects:

World’s Biggest 100 MW Geothermal Plant Built by Israel’s Ormat in New Zealand

Ormat to Provide 330 Megawatts of Geothermal Energy in Sumatra Indonesia

Ormat Rising Stocks a Boon for Israel Geothermal

Photo of New Zealand geothermal power plant by Soliclima

The post Ormat adds another geothermal power plant to America appeared first on Green Prophet.

Siemens, Germany’s giant electronics firm, appears to be in final stages of pulling out from its investment in Israel’s Solel Solar initiative. The four-year project began in 2009, when Siemens entered into an agreement to buy  the Israeli solar company. The beleaguered solar energy projects company received what seems to be a death knell.

Siemens recently announced the firing of 150 of its remaining 200 employees, leaving only a technical staff of 50 employees to deal with some solar energy projects in Spain.

News of this action appeared Sunday in Israel’s Globes financial newspaper,  which reported that the action was due to Siemens not being able to find a buyer for the ailing thermal solar projects  company.

Solel Solar became known as a global leader in building solar thermal fields, using parabolic mirrors that concentrate the solar energy onto solar thermal receivers containing a heat transfer fluid. The heat transfer fluid is circulated and heated through the receivers, and the heat is released to a series of heat exchangers to generate super-heated steam.

The steam powers a turbine/generator to produce electricity delivered to a utility’s electric grid. Although the company did supply solar thermal plants for some projects, including some in Spain, there has been controversy surrounding using large solar mirror projects which environmental experts fear may cause blindness to animals living in the areas when the solar mirrors are erected making them a “death Knell” for area wildlife.

Siemens acquired Solel Solar in 2009 for $418 million USD and at its peak 400 employees worked there. Besides the environmental issues, the thermal solar technology used  became too expensive to compete in a declining solar energy market where  photovoltaic solar panels were also having market problems. Siemens made a decision in late 2012 to quit the solar energy business.

A Spanish company, Abengoa SA had made a previous offer to purchase Solel Solar from Siemens. It later withdrew the offer when it became apparent that the future of the solar energy market was uncertain. Siemens has lost “hundreds of millions of Euros” in the project.

Read more on Siemens and Solel Solar:

Siemens Exits Israel’s Solel Solar Initiative

German Giant is Selling off Solel and its Solar Assets

New Study Shows that Negev Solar Farm is a Death Knell for Wildlife.

Siemens Mulls Buying Israeli Solar Company Solel

The post Israel Solar Setback as Siemens Fires 150 from Solel Plant appeared first on Green Prophet.

 

On Thursday, Dec. 20, Tzipi Livni’s new party, The Movement, stated that environmental reforms will be key components of their platform in the January 2013 Israeli elections. They propose passing a Basic Law for environmental protection, and a long-term blueprint for the Israeli energy market.

Livni presented The Movement’s environmental agenda together with Green Movement chairman Alon Tal.

Tal told the Jerusalem Post, “As a professor of environmental policy, I can honestly say this is the most detailed, comprehensive, creative and ambitious environmental platform ever introduced by a major political party in an Israeli election.”

The national elections in Israel are scheduled for January 22, 2013.

The Green Movement was founded in 2008. It has always campaigned for public transportation reform, among other public issues.  Following that strategy, The Movement now advocates for a complete overhaul of Israel’s Transportation Ministry budget, for increased public transportation, and aims to declare around 250,000 hectares (some 620,000 acres) of new, open protected areas. The agenda also included extensive government support for entrepreneurship in clean technologies.

“We are bringing today a strategic link between two movements that want to make a change in Israel,” Livni said.

Tal said that they would aim to bring renewable energy usage up to 10 percent by 2017 and 20 percent by 2020. Israel’s current official goal is 10 percent by 2020.

For a little more explanation about how Israel’s multi-party election system works, the GlobalPost published a concise guide.

Livni’s party is only a few weeks old. And only time will tell what new developments and platforms will be presented in the lead up to Israel’s national elections. But just having these kinds of tangible plans on the table does present a challenge to other major parties, especially center-left parties like the Labor party, that are also founded on social issues. The environment will certainly play a central role in the upcoming elections.

::Jpost

Image of Israeli elections via ChameleonsEye / Shutterstock.com

Image of Tzipi Livni via Dmitry Pistrov / Shutterstock.com

Read more about Israeli politics:

Environmental Platforms for Israel’s Elections

What’s Next for Israel’s Green Movement – Meimad?

Green Prophet Interviews Green Movement Spokesman Rami Livni

The post New Environmental Strategy On The Table In Israeli Elections appeared first on Green Prophet.

Advances in green technology are reported here often, including advances in solar energy, electric car technology and green bio-fuel from algae for future military and space programs.  Interest in Israeli green technology programs came to the forefront recently with a week long conference, Project Interchange 2012, in which a number of US energy experts visited Israel to learn about advances in a number of Israeli green technology projects. Mark Brownstein, photo: Environmental Defense Fund

US conference attendees included Mark S. Brownstein, Chief Counsel, Energy Program, Environmental Defense Fund, who commented that “Israel is on the front lines in the fight for energy security and against the worst consequences of global warming.”

Brownstein, who specializes in utility-related issues including transmission development, said that he is “looking  forward to finding ways Israel and the USA can work together to accelerate a global transition to a low-carbon, clean energy future.”

Another conference attendee, Scott N. Paul, Executive Director, Alliance for American Manufacturing said that he was very interested in finding out more about Israeli clean energy and electric car projects.

In the realm of electric cars, both Paul and Brownstein expressed interest in the Better Place electric car network project that Israeli entrepreneur Shai Agassi started up more than five years ago with not much more than a dream that one day, thousands – perhaps millions of 100% electric cars will be plying streets and highways all over using a unique service network designed by his company.

Although it has taken some time for Agassi’s ideas to bear fruit, Renault Fluence ZE or “zero emission” electric cars are now appearing on the roads in Australia, The U.K., Denmark, and here in Israel.

Two other conference attendees, Brian Wynne, President of Electronic Drive Transportation Association and Stephen Walz, Director of Energy Planning, Northern Virginia Regional Mining Commission  visited Israel’s first large scale desalination  plant. Abraham Tenne, Chairman of Israel Water Authority’s Desalination Division, gave them a personal tour.

Other clean technology projects of interest for visiting conferees included those dealing with renewable energy, including Shmuel Ovadia’s wave energy projects; and projects involving Israel’s solar energy in Israel’s Negev region that included a visit to the Zenith Solar Energy solar farm.

Zenith Solar, based in Nes Ziona, has been involved in some unique solar  energy projects; including one conducted together with Ben Gurion University Professor David Faiman, Director of Israel’s National Solar Energy Center.

The conference, scheduled to end on June 24th, hopes to create more foreign investment  into Israel’s clean technology and green energy projects, including solar, wind and wave energy.

Photos via Project Interchange, EDF

More articles on Israeli clean tech and renewable energy projects :

More Better Place Electric Car spotting
Jacob Karni’s solar energy turns brown coal into clean fuel
Algae as Biofuel as NATO and NASA Step Into the Slime

The post American Energy Experts Go Green in Israel appeared first on Green Prophet.

Last Wednesday in Munich, Germany, Israeli solar energy company TIGI Ltd. was among the three winners in the solar-thermal category at the Intersolar Europe Exhibition, an annual forum promoting solar technologies since 1991.

Despite the fact that it is located in the Middle East, Israel is often included in Europe’s competitions and showcases, as with the annual Eurovision Song Contest and some regional sporting competitions.

TIGI won the Intersolar Europe award thanks to its “Honycomb Collector,” a new type of solar-thermal technology, pictured above, that increases the efficiency of the collector while minimizing heat loss.

According to the Israel Export Institute, this would make solar energy a sustainable resource even in less sunny climates, such as places in northern Europe.

It wasn’t too long ago that European nations were investing in Israel’s solar technologies while Israel itself lagged behind in terms of implementation. This was despite the fact that Israel’s location and climate has incredible potential for harvesting solar power. In 2012 the Israeli government has been working to close that gap, making huge investments in local solar energy.

The state has already met its projected quota for solar power production through 2020. This means in the near future Israel will have to increase government subsidies or increase its quota for solar power production if it wants to encourage domestic use of solar energy. A combination of those two options would also serve the desert nation well, perhaps even better than either option alone.

::Jpost

Read more about solar energy in Israel:
A Real Live Solar City Shines in Israel
Israel Embraces Solar As It Races Towards 2020 Clean Energy
Arava Drags Israel into Solar Century with 58.5 MW Project

The post TIGI’s Honeycomb Solar Collector Wins Big Euro Award appeared first on Green Prophet.

SolarEdge Technologies Inc, whose patented Solar Power Harvesting and Optimization System is beginning to receive good reviews, will be exhibiting their products at the upcoming Solar Power International Trade Show in Dallas Texas.The Israel based solar energy company, with offices in the USA, Europe and Japan will have a booth at what is billed as North America’s largest, most comprehensive solar power trade show and conference that will run from October 17 -20 in the giant  Dallas Convention Center.

Israel is well known for advances in various forms of technology dealing with harnessing the sun’s power to create electricity as well as heating water of which Israel is a pioneer .

SolarEdge headquarters

SolarEdge was mentioned in a previous Green Prophet article after it  teamed up with Flextronics to produce systems for  improving the quality of photovoltaic solar panels.

The exhibition in Dallas, at which 24,000 visitors from 128 countries are expected to visit 1,200 exhibits, will display the most recent advances in solar energy using both photovoltaic solar panels as well as those using specially designed solar mirrors to direct the sun’s rays towards a central energy “collector” to create energy to operate thermal turbines.

SolarEdge’s unique Power Optimizers automatically maintain a fixed string voltage, allowing optimal efficiency of the SolarEdge inverter and giving installers greater flexibility to design optimal PV systems. In addition, the power optimizers also monitor the performance of each module and communicate performance data to the SolarEdge monitoring porta.

Solar energy projects in the USA have had their share of controversies. The Solar Power International exhibition follows the bankruptcy of the California based Solyndra solar energy company in August, laying off more than 1,100 workers. There have also been a number of problems for other solar energy companies, including the Israel-American partnership company Brightsource, which had been accused of trying to build its solar energy array farms on wildlife reserves and sacred Native American burial grounds.

As for Israel,  a leading wildlife protection authority, the Nature and Parks Authority, made a study in which they found that large solar mirror plants are dangerous for area wildlife .

The answer to building solar energy systems that work, and are environmentally friendly, may lie with companies like SolarEdge which specialize in building small and efficient solar energy systems that are not harmful to wildlife. That’s what SolarEdge with its power optimizers is banking on, and hopes to prove to visitors to its booth at the three-day conference in Dallas.

Read more on solar energy news and issues:

Abu Dhabi Prince “Crowns” Court Roof With Solar Panels

SolarEdge and Flextronics Create Solar Energy Products – And Jobs

Obama Touts Israel’ Developed Solar Company Bright Source

Arava Aora Solar Company Lights Area With Solar Energy

The post SolarEdge Does Dallas appeared first on Green Prophet.

The Israeli cabinet has just announced a decision to invest millions in renewable energy projects in the controversial Israeli settlements of the West Bank

Around a week ago, the Israeli government announced that 10% of its renewable energy quota would be going to the West Bank. This means that literally millions (some have put the estimate at $660 million) will be heading to the territories to encourage solar, wind and biofuel energy development.

Whilst this move has been welcomed by green activists in principle, there have been concerns over the fact that solar fields will be built in the Israeli settlements of the West Bank. The continuing growth of the Jewish settlements across the West Bank is one of the most widely contested issues in the region and is considered to be a major barrier to Israel and Palestine reaching a peace deal. So does green progress outweigh these political downfalls?

In the past, Israeli settlements have struggled to secure approval for renewable energy projects and were not assigned a quota of the renewable projects of the Israeli state. This all changed around a week ago when 10 percent of the allocation for renewable energy projects were shifted to the West Bank and the Israeli government placed a cap on settlement projects of 46 megawatts for large solar fields, 80 megawatts for wind power and 21 megawatts for biofuels. Thirty megawatts of the national 300 megawatt allocation has been given to the settlements.

According to estimates by the Jerusalem Post, if all the quota in renewable energy in the West Bank settlements are used it would add up to an investment of around $660million. The policy shift also means that various roof-top solar panel projects in the Ma’ale Adumim settlement were given the all clear.

You could argue that green energy projects need to be celebrated where ever they are but I personally find it hard to celebrate a policy which appears to be further jeopardizing the chances of peace between Israel and Palestine.

Although all Israelis (Arabs and Jews) are theoretically allowed to make use of the government quotas, only Israeli settlers have Israeli citizenship in the West Bank and so Palestinians can’t make use of the renewable energy quotas allocation. What’s more, Palestinian themselves struggle to secure permission from Israel to build their own renewable projects. As Hanna Siniora, co-CEO of the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information, told the Jerusalem Post:

“Palestinians want to build renewable energy, but most of the land at the moment is under the administration of Israel’s defense ministry, Area C. We are not allowed to create projects in Area C. Renewable energy is as important to Palestinians as it is to Israelis, so maybe they should be given an equal chance to do this.”

:: Image via Arwa Aburawa.

:: Jerusalem Post

See more on the West Bank see:

Palestinian Environmentalists Talks About Water, Dams and Finding Peace

Palestine’s Geothermal Pioneer Shares Expertise Online

East Jerusalem Environmental Center to Green The Neighborhood

The post Solar Power In The West Bank – Green Progress or Bad Politics? appeared first on Green Prophet.

Already in a number of clean technology partnership projects, including solar energy and desalination, America’s giant electrical products company, General Electric – GE –  is setting up a “multidisciplinary” research and development center in Haifa Israel Globes reports. The center, the cost which is estimated to be between $3-5 million, will concentrate in research in medical devices, water, and clean energy. Twelve researchers will be hired to staff the center, which will bring to a total of 462 GE employees working in Israel. What’s going on with GE in the Holy Land?

Better Place electric  car company also works with GE.

There are many multinational development centers in Israel, and American companies are always looking for Israeli clean tech “partners” to work with. Some of these ventures include renewable energy, electric cars, water conservation, and those in the health and bio technology fields.

The new GE research team will focus on renewable energy, energy storage, smart grid, and energy efficiency technologies.

Many of these types of projects are already well under way in Israel, especially by the many “start up” companies located there.

The new center will be headed by Oded Meirav, a previous VP of business development at GE Global Research Center for the past four years. Just a few of the Israel companies that Mierav has had GE connect to include the electric car technology company Better Place, Solar Energy company SolarEdge,  and inflatable wind turbine company WinFlex Ltd.

Other projects dealing with water desalinization and water monitoring and purification will be part of the R & D work at the new facility.

The new Haifa facility will round out its research projects with some in the health fields dealing with non invasive medical diagnostic devices.

GE Global Research VP advanced technologies Michael Idelchik said: “Israel has a rich history of innovation and scientific discovery .With the establishment of the new R&D center, we will be in a better position to build a close relationship with the Israeli technology community and identify new technologies that could become part of our portfolio.”

Photo images from the GE: WinFlex

Read more on Israeli clean tech:

Start up Nation Book Looks at Israel’s Hi Tech Industry and Insights into Clean Tech

Better Place Gets a “Charge” With GE Partnership

SolarEdge Solar Company Lip Dubs Light On for New Year Cheer

Israeli Companies Winners in GE Green Innovation Marathon

The post GE Sets Green Tech Shop in Israel appeared first on Green Prophet.

The electric car innovation and development industries in Israel have not been sparing media hype to make people more aware of the approaching realities of large numbers of electric cars plying the streets and highways. This is especially true regarding companies such as Better Place LLC, which plans to put their version of a Renault made electric car on Israel’s roads by the end of 2011.

Better Place’s battery exchange network is not being received favorably by many people, however; and the company’s infrastructure concepts in Israel (the proposed trial center for company head Shai Aggasi), the company does not appear to be to moving towards creating such a big impression on the average individual. The company is also being looked at as an electric car  “monopoly” since it is the only “favored” electric car company in Israel.

All this may change, however, with the entrance of another electric car concept “player”, ETV Motors which has just announced a radically new concept to extend the range of  the lithium ion  battery cell packs that will be fueling these cars.

Located just north of Tel Aviv, in Herzliya, ETV Motors is developing a unique micro- turbine device that will be able to extend the range of  the battery cell packs to up to twice the present driving range of 130 -160 km.

In an interview with weekly Car Talk radio show hosts Joop Soesan and Weeb Cnossen ETV’s Chief Operations Officer Arnold Roth said that the micro turbine device will be able to “create electricity while driving.”

The turbine utilizes a specially series of rotary blades, which will be located at the rear of the car’s undercarriage and will provide power by a rotating “universal joint” to the battery pack in the center of the car.

According to Roth, ETV will be able to create electricity at much less costs than a combination of expensive lithium ion battery packs and electricity provided by standard electrical power plants. This will be possible, Roth said, due to ETV also developing a much less expensive battery cell pack than the one currently being made for companies like GM (for their new Volt model) and Better Place, whose “Li-IO” battery pack is very heavy and tremendously expensive.

ETV is intent on producing a “new generation” of batteries by creating a new type of battery cell that takes up less space in the car and is much less expensive to produce.

“Our new battery cells contain no exotic materials and create a more affordable battery for use in electric cars and other vehicles,” Roth says. He added that combined with the new micro turbine, between 50 and 100 % more battery power will be possible. Information found on ETV’s website:

“ETVM’s High5ive 4.7V battery cells are designed to be more compact than, and have twice the driving range of, the best available competing cells. Batteries built on the basis of High5ive cells will be less expensive to produce; will have higher energy density reaching 200-250 Wh/kg and beyond (300-350 Wh/kg at the cell level) and will be safer to use”.

ETV has so far been able to raise more than $16 million in venture capital, and prototypes of both battery packs and turbines will be ready for serious testing in 2011.

As for ETV’s new mico-turbine concept, Roth believes that this technology will be much better than that presently being utilized by companies like GM or Tesla motors, whom readers will recall offer a high priced electric sports car. The car recently raised nearly $190 million in an IPO stock offering.

::ETV Motors

Read more about electric EV car technology:

Israeli Electric Cars on  the Fast Tract, Says Company’s Power Supplier

“Car Talk” With The Driving Dutchman Highlights Many Green Auto Issues

Oman’s Noor Majan to Build Mid East’s First Electric Car, With Massage Seats to Boot

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