Israeli firms invest in clean tech

With an eye toward the global energy crisis and Israel's own looming 
power shortages, dozens of Israeli start-up companies are investing 
in clean technology to convert Israel's dependence on oil to 
leadership in the field of alternative energy. 

by Dina Kraft
June 1, 208

TEL AVIV (JTA) -- At a lab in Rehovot, the man who developed the 
Arrow missile is consumed with his next mission: making Israel 
energy independent by using cheap solar power.

"The issue of energy is the greatest danger to Israel because in 
30 years there will be no energy means, no oil and no gas, and the 
use of coal will be prohibited," said Dov Raviv, now the CEO of MST, 
an Israeli renewable energy company. "Without energy Israel 
cannot survive, and we must find a substitute and find it fast. 
That is what I am trying to do."

Raviv's company is working to reduce the high price of solar power, 
which is not yet competitive with the price of conventional energy 
sources like oil, by more efficiently harnessing solar energy through 
a method of concentrating sunlight on a matrix of single solar cells.

MST is one of dozens of alternative energy start-ups across Israel 
seeking solutions to the global energy crisis.

Among the innovations under development are a gear system that 
dramatically boosts the efficiency of wind turbines, a device that 
would reduce gas emissions from trucks, the generation of 
bio-fuels from desert plants; and various techniques to generate 
energy from unlikely sources, including seaweed and sewage water.

Entrepreneurs say Israeli solutions can help not only Israel but the 
world.

"Israel has the minds, the R&D, the technology and the 
entrepreneurship, but we are lagging behind in terms of actual 
deployment," said David Schwartz, the chairman of MyPlanet, 
an Israeli consortium of companies involved in energy and security 
issues. "This is impeding reaching our full potential as a source of 
alternative energy for the world."

Israel's leadership in the development of alternative energy also 
can have security benefits. If the world is weaned from its 
overwhelming dependence on oil, the oil-rich autocratic regimes 
that surround the Jewish state, including Iran, will have less oil 
revenue to pay for their anti-Israel activities -- whether the 
development of nuclear weapons or the funding of fundamentalist 
terrorist groups.

During a recent visit to Israel to accept the $1 million Dan David 
Award for promoting environmental awareness, Al Gore asked a 
question many Israelis have been pondering themselves: 
"How is it here, in the land of the sun, there is no widespread use 
of solar energy?"

Alternative energy is "good for the Jews," Gore told a conference 
on the subject at Tel Aviv University.

Industry observers say more aggressive government policies, such 
as underwriting renewable energy initiatives and granting more land 
for power plants, are needed to bolster the development of 
alternative energy.

"Europe and the U.S. have made incredible strides," Schwartz said. 
"Israel has not."

Meanwhile, Israel has an energy shortage looming. Israel’s supply 
capacity is 10,600 megawatts per day, and the country has come 
dangerously close to exceeding that demand on especially hot and 
cold days.

With limited energy reserves to accommodate for surges, and as 
the country’s population and energy use grows, the problem is 
becoming more acute.

Amnon Shpira, the head of Israel’s public utility authority, told 
JTA that plans are under way to launch deliberate rolling brownouts 
this summer among certain industries at peak times to deal with 
the problem.

Other short-term strategies include encouraging Israelis to scale 
back their electricity use, limiting the use of large appliances on 
certain days and setting their air conditioner thermostats at higher 
temperatures.

The head of the Israel Energy Forum, Yael Cohen-Paran, says 
some relatively simple measures could significantly reduce the 
load on the energy grid: cash rebates for those who purchase 
energy-efficient air conditioning and heating units, and government 
encouragement of energy-saving building practices.

The long-term solution, however, may require more of a shift.

At the Tel Aviv energy conference, Israel's infrastructure minister, 
Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, responded to criticism of government policy 
on the issue by announcing a commitment to increase the share 
of such energies to 15-20 percent of Israel's total energy use by 
2020, double that of previous targets.

He also pledged to adopt a plan to build one new solar station per 
year for the next 20 years and introduce a bill to make the Negev 
Desert and southern Israel a "national preference region" for 
renewable energies. Tax breaks and other incentives would be part 
of the package.

Turning Israel into a center for clean technology could build new 
bridges between Israel and Diaspora Jews, says Jonathan Shapira, 
a recent American law school graduate living in Tel Aviv who 
organizes monthly meetings for entrepreneurs interested in clean 
tech and writes a blog on the subject.

As an example, Shapira cited the business park for renewable 
energy firms being built in the Arava with funding from Toronto's 
Jewish community.

"Rather than just making a charitable donation, people are helping 
create the infrastructure for economic growth and a cleaner 
environment in Israel," Shapira said.

Yossi Abramowitz, the president of Arava Power, wants to install 
62,500 solar panels by year's end on the sun-drenched sands of 
Israel’s deserts. He says his company has found investors to pay 
for solar power stations that would be capable of supplying up to 
500 megawatts of electricity for the country -- nearly 5 percent of 
Israel's daily energy needs during daylight hours.

The project relies on the use of photovoltaics, or PV, a relatively 
expensive technology that uses a fraction of the silicon used in 
conventional solar panels to convert sunlight-generated photons 
into energy.

But for this energy to be competitive on the open market, the 
government needs to double its current rate of subsidy, Abramowitz 
says, bringing Israel more in line with the levels of subsidy in 
countries such as Germany and Spain.

Funding for Abramowitz’s project is also conditional upon the 
government promising a 20-year subsidy for the solar power, 
known as a feed-in tariff. Israel's public utility authority is scheduled 
to vote on the matter soon.

"While there is great innovation and technology in solar energy, 
there is zero commercial solar energy being generated today," 
Abramowitz said.

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev announced a new deal last 
week with the Israeli start-up Zenith Solar to license solar energy 
technology developed by its researchers that could revolutionize 
the way solar power is collected and drastically reduce its price.

The new method, a form of "concentrated PV," would use fewer of 
the expensive silicon solar cells to create energy. Instead it would 
use low-cost glass mirrors to collect sunlight and then focus it 
onto a relatively small amount of those solar cells to generate 
power.

"We can envision systems of $1 per kilowatt for the entire system, 
which is the kind of costs that conventional fossil fuel costs before 
you start figuring in the costs of fuel they have to burn," said 
Professor David Faiman, the chairman of the university's solar 
energy and environmental physics department and director of the 
National Solar Energy Center.

The Israeli founder of an algae fuel company called GreenFuel, 
Isaac Berzin, who was named by Time magazine as one of its 
Top 100 people in the world for 2008, says Israel is too small of 
a country to keep such technology to itself.

"Israel should be a catalyst for change," Berzin said. "Israel is a 
very small market, a very small place in the middle of nowhere, 
but it has here what it takes in terms of technology, the know-how 
to change the world."