ISRAEL: New solar energy system provides electricity for an Israeli village, replaces traditional use of fossil fuels

Record ID: 397221

  • Title: ISRAEL: New solar energy system provides electricity for an Israeli village, replaces traditional use of fossil fuels
  • Date: 21st April 2009
  • Summary: KVUTZAT YAVNE, ISRAEL (RECENT) (REUTERS) FIELD OF SOLAR MODULES VARIOUS OF SUN BEING REFLECTED ON SOLAR MODULES ROY SEGEV, FOUNDER AND CEO OF 'ZENITH SOLAR' STANDING UNDER MODULE, TALKING TO WORKER NEXT TO A LAPTOP COMPUTER SOLAR MODULE / SEGEV AND WORKER STANDING UNDER MODULE (SOUNDBITE) (English) ROY SEGEV, FOUNDER AND CEO OF 'ZENITH SOLAR', SAYING: "This technology her
  • Embargoed: 6th May 2009 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel
  • Country: Israel
  • Topics: Science / Technology
  • Reuters ID: LVAAE6XW0IBBRAGF0U6G3FYYJ2EM
  • Story Text: An energy company in Israel plans to launch a solar farm this month using new technology it says can produce cheap and efficient electricity while supplying hot water to homes.
    As with all solar energy systems, investors and consumers may be turned off by high initial costs and the need for strong sunlight but if the commercial pilot works, Israeli start-up ZenithSolar plans to make small units for homes in a few years.

    "This technology here that you see in my background has the ability to harvest 75% of the solar energy which it collects. And if you take any traditional photo-voltaic technology, the maximum very very advanced state-of-the-art technology will harvest something in the vicinity of 12% to 13%," ZenithSolar CEO Roy Segev told Reuters in an exclusive interview.
    According to Segev, the expected cost is 8.6 cents per kilowatt hour.
    Conventional solar panels generate electricity from sunlight with less than 15 percent efficiency and can cost more than double per kilowatt hour.
    With billions of dollars being invested in global green stimulus plans, energy companies world-wide are racing to develop more efficient environmental-friendly technologies.
    ZenithSolar says that in peak conditions, its system can produce electricity and hot water at a cost to consumers that can compete with fossil fuels without government subsidies.
    The company's solar field takes up a half-acre lot at the edge of a kibbutz in central Israel. Sixteen units, each with two 11-square-metre (110-square-foot) dishes, harvest sunlight in a pilot project that will be unveiled on April 26.
    The dishes have about 1,200 small mirrors that concentrate sunlight -- hot enough to burn through metal -- on a four-inch (10 cm-) square panel of photovoltaic (PV), or solar, cells made from a special material.

    "The idea being to replace large areas of PV panels by large areas of cheap glass and concentrate the light onto a very small amount of PV material. And we developed a method of doing this whereby we concentrate the light a thousand times so that PV panel, four inches by four inches, gives the same amount of electric power as two hundred square feet of conventional PV panels," said ZenithSolar's chief scientist, David Faiman.
    Each dish can generate the same amount of electricity as a 200-square-feet (19-square-metres) of conventional PV panel, Faiman said.
    About a third of the peak energy produced at the pilot, some 70 kilowatts, is electricity. That is enough for about 30 houses. The rest, about 140 kilowatts, is heat transferred into water, which doubles as a coolant, to be used by the community.
    The company says that each unit, generating 15 kilowatts of combined electric and thermal output, has a total cost of about $29,500 and can operate for 15 years. It plans to develop smaller units that can be installed in the backyard or on house rooftops.
    Asked about the Israeli company's system, Ken Zweibel, director of the Institute for Analysis of Solar Energy at George Washington University, said in a phone conversation that he saw some shortcomings.
    The reason the running costs are low, he said, is because the Zenith system produces mostly thermal energy in hot water, rather than more valuable electricity. He also said all solar cells lose efficiency when operating at such hot temperatures.
    But he added that the combined output of high-efficient electricity and its hot water by-product is a new variation that should work well in areas with ample sunlight.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2011. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register