New Negev research center to test solar technology

The newly built Negev-based Solar Energy Development Center is on track to move forward the initiative of a US-Israeli company to build the world’s largest solar plant in California’s Mojave desert.

The Californian company BrightSource Energy, formed in 2006, and its Israel-based subsidiary Luz II are dedicating the center Thursday. The facility took a year and a half to build and is not yet fully functional, but will be completed for technology testing in about a month.
“With appropriate and comprehensive public policy infrastructure being put in place on a national and global scale, solar power is ready to be pushed to the forefront and deliver the highest quality, carbon-free energy to the world,” Arnold Goldman, chairman and founder of the two companies, told The Jerusalem Post.

The development center, located in the Rotem Industrial Park, is intended to perform as a technological center for the company. The site features more than 1,600 glass mirrors, known as heliostats, which track the sun and reflect light onto a 60 meter-high tower. The concentrated energy is then used to heat a boiler atop the tower to 550 degrees Celsius, generating steam that is piped into a turbine, where electricity can be produced.

In order to preserve the precious desert water used in the energy-producing process, the center created a closed water loop that uses an air-cooling system to change the produced steam back into water, then allowing it to return to the boiler.

Jerusalem Post