Israel allows first solar power plants

The Israeli government this week issued the first licenses for solar power plants, paving the way for the country to meet its new goal of 10 percent of electricity through renewable sources by 2020. 

Israel's Public Utility Authority gave the OK for Arava Power to build a 4.9-megawatt solar photovoltaic power plant at Kibbutz Ketura in the Arava desert.The authority also issued a license to Edig Solar to build a 100-kilowatt solar thermal plant.

The licenses give the companies 18 months to build the plants and connect them to the electric grid. Both are awaiting the approval of National Infrastructures Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer.

Arava's project is expected to cost NIS 120 million ($31.2 million). The company plans to begin construction as soon as the license is approved on the 80-dunam (861,000-square-foot) facility.

"For the first time, a large solar project is being launched that will be connected to the national grid, with many more megawatts on the way in the coming years," Arava President Yosef Abramowitz said in a release.

Abramowitz has said that a rate of NIS 1.80 per kilowatt-hour ($0.47) would make the project economically viable. The Public Utilities Authority recently agreed to buy electricity at NIS 2.01 ($0.53 USD) per kilowatt hour from individuals and companies installing solar arrays on roofs—four times the going price of electricity for consumers (see Sunday Solar powers Israeli kibbutzim).

That move has prompted a solar boom in Israel, where the country's largest solar installation—50-kilowatts—was connected to the grid in December as part of a joint venture of Wuxi, China-based Suntech Power Holdings (NYSE: STP) and Ramat Gan, Israel-based Solarit Doral (see Israel opens largest solar plant with Chinese help).

Edig Solar expects its solar thermal plant to come online in March. The technology was developed at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot.