German engineering, procurement and construction services company Belectric has installed a 480 kW floating PV plant in Israel. It was contracted by Israeli energy business Nofar Energy.
The project, the first floating solar facility announced in Israel, was installed on a reservoir near the Mishmar HaEmek kibbutz in the north of the country.
Belectric said the project, which features 1,300 modules on floating structures, has been linked to the mainland via floating marine-grade power lines. “The floating platform itself is held in place by an anchoring and mooring system,” the company said.
Ingo Alphéus, CEO of the German company’s Belectric Solar & Battery GmbH business, said, “We are an experienced system integrator and general contractor for utility scale, ground-mounted PV and with this floating project we are entering a very young but highly promising and fast-growing market.”
Belectric did not specify whether the project was subsidized. Israel supports PV through tenders for large scale projects and an incentive scheme for rooftop PV, which includes net metering and feed-in tariffs.
At the end of 2018, the country had around 1,070 MW of installed PV capacity, according to International Renewable Energy Agency figures.
