At $0.06 per kilowatt, the cost of solar energy is now less than the cost of natural gas.
BY TARA KAVALER/THE MEDIA LINE
The Arava region of southern Israel, which includes the city of Eilat, will reach its goal of being 100-percent reliant on solar energy during the daytime by next year, placing the area light years ahead of the rest of the country.
The team responsible for the achievement, along with other experts, is now lobbying for legislation that would make the entire country 100% solar-energy-reliant during daytime hours by 2030. At present, fossil fuels provide 95% of Israel’s electricity.
The Arava achievement is the result of a partnership between Yosef Abramowitz, CEO of Energiya Global, and Dorit Banet, CEO of Eilat-Eilot Renewable Energy.
Abramowitz is a pioneer of the solar-energy industry in Israel, and his firm uses the Arava model to build solar and wind installations in Africa. Eilat-Eilot is a non-profit that promotes sustainable energy as a tool for economic growth in southern Israel.
“When the Arava region had the initial goal of 100% daytime [solar energy] by 2020, there were so many naysayers – and for relatively good reasons: cost, space and grid stability, along with regulatory, statutory and political [feasibility],” Abramowitz told The Media Line. “We’ve answered every concern that not just a region would have, but that a country would have.”
At $0.06 per kilowatt, the cost of solar energy is now less than the cost of natural gas.
“Solar is around one-third the price of natural gas, but that fact is conveniently buried by politicians and the natural gas company,” Abramowitz said. “Once Israelis learn that they are paying three, maybe four times more for their power than they should be, they will want solar.”
He added that “the cost of storage necessary to keep consistent power when the weather is uncooperative and for use at night” is also on the decline.
A major concern about solar energy is the land required for large installations.
Even though the South is less populated than the rest of Israel, Abramowitz said that “zoning rules are arduous, making it difficult to install the necessary equipment. In addition, vast tracts of land in the region are comprised of nature preserves and military zones.”
He added that he and Banet worked with municipalities, private companies and kibbutzim to lease areas needed to power the region, saying experts were using GPS mapping to show how all of Israel can achieve 100% solar power by 2030.
“It will be done by using rooftops on houses, commercial centers and military installations, among other places,” he said.
Banet admits that the Arava represents a tiny fraction of Israel’s energy consumption, but told The Media Line that “it is possible to convert the rest of Israel to solar power. What was done in the region can be applied to the rest of the country.”
Israel’s current nationwide goal of 17% solar energy use during the day is based on the calculations for Germany, the world’s leader in solar-power consumption.
“Solar energy is not always constant, as it can be interrupted if the sun is not out,” Abramowitz says. “That is not an issue in the Arava due to the extensive sun the region receives.”
Another problem that needs to be overcome is grid stability.
“In order to get the rest of the country up to 100% solar energy during the day, existing power lines need to be updated so that excess electricity can run from the South to areas in the North of Israel that do not have as much sun, and power grids would need to run differently,” he explained.
“You have to change your way of thinking about the grid,” he went on. “You need independent microgrids that are connected to the main grids, and to manage them differently.”
Abramowitz says a decentralized approach has security benefits as well.
“If one solar field is hit [in wartime or by terrorism], it does not impact the rest,” he said. “This is the opposite of Israel’s [conventional] power plants, which are within rocket range of Hamas and Hizbullah, and are responsible for most of the electricity produced.”
He called solar energy “the smartest national-security energy plan that you can put forward.”
Victor Weis, executive director of the Tel Aviv-based Heschel Center for Sustainability, told The Media Line that “it’s not just the challenge of changing from fossil fuel to solar energy – it’s how we change the structure of the energy system and break the monopoly that a few companies have in order to bring energy to people.”
He said the biggest problem was public policy.
“The Israeli government relies on gas,” he explained. “It’s a political issue. In the next year, all the world’s governments, not just Israel, must set their climate goals for 2050, so this year is the most crucial to ensure change.”
Abramowitz says he is optimistic about Israel passing legislation to make the entire country 100% daytime-solar by 2030.
“It’s definitely going to pass,” he said. “The question is how long it is going to take and how hard it is going to be. But now there is public pressure to get something done.”
For more stories, go to TheMediaLine.org
Israel, the squad’s bete noir, is the only country in the world actually putting in place a Green New Deal and making it work. This shows that the squad doesn’t actually care about the environment. It’s just a wedge issue.
@ Frank Adam:
I amplanning to write a book on this issue of global warming so Frank Adam you do not mind i am sure using this as an example of somebody going right up his own arse.
WHAT are you talking about man!
When I hear somebody going over incomprehensible language I just assume it is gibberish. I am right here.
by the way Ted Belman just a week or so ago you were regaling us all that global warming was a big scam.
You certainly are a very nifty man or your feet Ted Belman.
but remember that shifting position without any explanation to go along with the change of position may lead one to think “opportunist”.
By the way this is the best thing that has come out of Israel since forever.
My primary advice to Abramowitz-Banet is to first concentrate on increasing the efficiency of photo-voltaic panels. With the present yield of 15%. space becomes a problem. Increasing efficiency to 85-90% will decrease the space requirements by 75% or more. But the simplest solution will be to consider Mudir Zaharan-Ted Belman’s The “Jordan is palestine ” solution. Space? No problem. Enough to supply power to the Kurds as well. I’ll bet you one to million that The new Palestine will be more than happy to swap useless space for free energy.
Solar panels can also be put, not only on roofs but on all South facing walls of buildings and district linked which should not be difficult in towns.
I am surprised that Zaslavsky power towers (qv Technion web site and Arubot Sharav) have not been taken up as group of five or more at Timna would take less ground and still supply 400MW capacity each throughout each day AND night besides offering nearly half a million square metres (50 Ha or 125 acres) to hang a lot of solar panels on their Southern third.
Bravo! With the JNF tree planting Israel has shown the World it can survive the climate change. Heat pumps (fridge and air conditioner mechanisms) use 75% less energy – read electricity or gas than do boilers. Even in Israel insulation will also help to keep out summer heat and keep in winter heating.
The big problem is vehicle liquid fuel to introduce hydrogen into our motors. Petroleum carries the hydrogen on carbon chains but during WW II Antwerp – or Amsterdam – ran its buses on ammonia (NH3) no doubt taken from the gasworks or Haber – Bosch process for fertilisers, explosives, dyestuffs etc. The key to this is breaking the nitrogen from air and hydrogen from water by pumping them alternately through a bed of hot coke then distilling out the CO2 and CO and passing the H and N under compression through catalysts to form ammonia which dissolves up to 800 volumes in water and so is not a problem of gases in pressure cylinders to transport and feed to bus, rail or tank motors, and jet(?) engines.
The question is the cost compared to oil drilling and refining and whether the hot coke stage can be replaced with a grid/maze of electrically heated brick.