Israel is known as a solar energy pioneer, but wind in some locations, is not lacking in the small Middle East nation. But after seeing the research and the environmental impacts of wind energy companies, offshore wind turbines, and on land turbines, the Israeli government has rejected a plan for a local company Energix which works with wind turbine energy suppliers such as Vestas and Siemens. 

A government planning committee in the area of the planned site Ramat Menashe said that ultimately the turbines would have a negative impact on the local environment, classed as a UNESCO Biosphere. The wind turbine propellers would also be a risk to migratory birds who pass through Israel from Europe to Africa on an important migratory route. Look to local hero Yossi Leshem for saving the birds. Wind turbines get nixed in Jordan for the same reason as they share the same habitat as Israel.

The lesser kestrel is one of the birds in danger of extinction in Israel, despite the wind turbine company assessing that only a few birds would be harmed each year.  Other factors such as noise would shut the turbines down for hours during the day, and flickering where overhead turbine shadows can be a nuisance to people.  Other wind turbine projects have been abandoned in Israel for environmental reasons: one wind turbine power plant was planned for Ramat Sirin, the Yatir Hills and in the Golan Heights. 

Earlier this year the Jerusalem Post reported that Israel’s government had green-lit about $75 million worth of wind turbines in Israel’s north. When faced with endless committees and ministries who rarely agree or communicate with one another –– or worse –– agree on contradictory ideas it is really no wonder Israel can’t increase its adoption of renewable energies.

Wind energy history in Israel

The Golan Heights wind farm was Israel’s first wind farm and the first commercial wind-power project in the Middle East. Installation started after an extensive wind resource assessment carried out in 20 sites in the Golan Heights for about three years. The farm operates 10 Floda 600 wind turbines generating 6 MW in total.

There is no shortage of people trying to make existing technologies better, and certainly no shortage of people idealising working with the wind and the sun. Read below for some of the wind energy stories from Israel we have covered in the past:

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When we think of wind turbines, we tend to picture the standard massive turbine fans the size of airplane wings created by companies like Vestas. While they’re an important carbon-free component to supplying countries with renewable energy solutions, there are those – including environmentalists – who find the massive turbines unsightly and somewhat controversial. Sometimes, new roads have to be laid to secure the mega-blades into the ground near windy shores. And the unsightly wind stations devalue property and real estate.

Meanwhile, an Israeli company is proving that there’s more than one way to catch the wind. Looking to the French mathematician, Gaspard Gustave de Coriolis, the team at the company that bears his name has developed a medium-sized scalable wind technology that can grow with one’s energy needs, investment potential and the changing winds of time.

Based on a single unit that rotates three blades vertically, like a barber’s pole, Coriolis Wind’s solution which we’ve reported on earlier, is scalable – each unit of 50 kilowatts can be stacked together with others to generate as much as one megawatt of power, enough energy to run an industrial park. The product is currently in the prototype stage.

With a name derived from the Coriolis effect – the deflective effect of the earth’s rotation on all free-moving objects, including oceans, the atmosphere and wind – the company’s solution lies in extremely lightweight vertical turbine blades, each only about six and a half feet long. Developed from a lightweight plastic material, the molded turbines are linked together in a “pod” of three, to form a module. Modules can be connected together to scale, as more power is needed.

Tapping into a $40 billion market

Coriolis sees itself as ultimately offering a new paradigm to tap into the medium-scale wind power solutions market, estimated at about $40 billion. Its approach is to move away from the massive blades and over to small- to medium-sized units that have less effect on the environment and their surroundings.

“You know it’s very subjective,” Coriolis CEO Rafi Gidron tells ISRAEL21c. “We believe that the environmental impact of our system is not as disturbing as the big turbines.

“Ours is designed for a distributed wind environment in industrial parks, commercial parks and small communities in the wind environment,” he explains. With Coriolis, you won’t see “big wind farms with dozens of turbines, but a smaller installation,” he adds.

Coriolis is focusing on the niche where the big wind turbines are not the appropriate solution. The company can reduce the overhead costs incurred by cranes, and doesn’t require any special type of delivery transport for installation like the larger turbine fans do.

“Our system is designed so it doesn’t require training, it can easily be maintained and can be transported by small standard trucks,” he says, stressing that the units’ prices will be competitive with the industry standards.

Born in a cowshed

Some companies, Gidron continues, will be able to park the system behind the electricity meter and sell the power back to the grid at retail prices. At other locations the units can be tailored to meet the energy needs at any given time, and can scale up as a company or factory grows. And theoretically, the turbines can also be moved if wind intensity should change or if a company relocates.

The company of 13, founded in 2008, has an ambitious plan to be a leader in wind energy, supplying power to large buildings, schools and industrial parks all over the world.

The company’s pilot site is located at the Israeli agricultural village of Kfar Yarok, where its office and test lab are housed inside a cowshed. “That’s where the sh** literally hits the fan,” says Gidron (pun intended).

With a $10 million investment Coriolis will build its beta site in the US, along with a strategic partner – a major American energy company that has not yet been named. The site is expected to be ready by 2011.

Coriolis was founded by Precede, a group of four entrepreneurs who also founded the Pythagoras and Solar Power solar energy companies. All the founders now hold full-time positions at Coriolis and offer their support as board members to the other two companies since launched.

(This story was first published on ISRAEL21c – www.israel21c.org)

More on the potential of wind power for the Middle East:
Turkey Blowing and Going on Wind Power
Does Wind Energy Endanger Migrating Birds?
Harvest Rainwater and Build Turbines With Vertigo Dance Company
Dubai’s Wind-Powered Rotating Skyscraper is Building in Motion

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