Last week the Israeli government approved the Ministry of National Infrastructure’s plan to build two solar power stations each @125 MWe. An RFQ, expected by the end of this year, will invite local and international solar power technology companies as well as integrators to submit proposals. In spite of the early intention to open the tender only for trough technology, which is the only mature and proven for commercial applications, it was now decided to invite also all other technologies, from power tower/s, through, parabolic dish and concentrating photovoltaics.
The electricity produced will be purchased by the nationbal grid. As utilities consider dispatchability to be of greatest operational value, it will be probably required to incorporate significant thermal storage capacity as well as using up to 30% fossil fuels, in order to provide the higher value generation capacity to the utility customer.
Hence, the Israeli Public Utility Authority adopted a feed-in-tariff for solar energy power stations, that are based on no more than 30% of plant’s output from fossil fuel, and will provide a prcedure for secured mininal revenue. The relevant feed-in-tariff is NIS 0.70 (17.45 US cents per KWH at current exchange rates) for electricity produced from the sun. The feed-in-tariff for the up to 30% electricity produced from fossil fuel will be determined according to the Time-Of-Use (TOF) and the relevant fuel costs.
Later on we’ll provide more details on crucial issues like the location’s isolation, tender principles and more.
