Status: 09/11/2022 3:11 p.m
Although Israel has an abundance of sun, wind and hydroelectric power, the country uses comparatively little renewable energy. A company founder wants to change that – with a wave power plant.
The small tourist boat has hardly left the sheltered port of Jaffa when the first wave hits it with full force. The bow rises, smacks back onto the sea. Jane, an employee of the company Eco-Wave-Power (EWP), cries out briefly. The captain of the boat laughs. After a short trip along the harbor wall, the boat has reached its destination: Israel’s first wave power plant. Eight blue floats, several meters wide and long, swing up and down to the rhythm of the waves, attached by movable rods.
Wave energy for 100 households
On the other side of the wall, in the sheltered harbor, company founder Inna Braverman inspects the generator. It is the heart of the power plant, housed weatherproof in a shipping container. “This is where waves become electric current,” says Braverman. In a few days, the power plant will be connected to the Israeli power grid for the first time, she proudly announces. 100 households can then be supplied with clean wave energy.
She points to the two generators behind her, one of which is already running. “When the waves are low, like today, we only use the small generator, and when the waves are stronger, we use the big one,” explains the entrepreneur. “And if there are really high waves, then both generators run in parallel.”
As the founder of the Israeli company Eco-Wave-Power, Inna Braverman has been campaigning for wave power plants on harbor or coastal walls for years. The technology itself is not new. “Until now, systems like this have been installed in the middle of the ocean,” she says. “That makes them complicated and expensive, prone to damage and not very environmentally friendly.” The unbeatable advantage of their model is the relatively low production costs and the environmentally friendly installation on existing harbor walls. It costs around 450,000 US dollars to install a system comparable to this one.
Plants also in Spain and Portugal
Braverman has now signed two contracts with EU countries for the construction of “their wave power plant”, larger than the plant in the port of Jaffa. A wave power plant is to be built on the Spanish coast with an output of two megawatts, i.e. electricity for around 2000 households. Another is under construction on the Portuguese coast and is expected to supply 20,000 households.
The founder wants to advance wave power plants not only in the EU, but also in Israel. The development of clean energy sources in the high-tech location of Israel can still be expanded. Israel narrowly missed its self-imposed goal of covering at least ten percent of its energy needs with renewable energy by 2020. There are hardly any large-scale solar parks in the country where it shines almost every day.
Tel Aviv has targets for 2030
The Department of Energy remains at the request of the ARD Studios Tel Aviv unspecific. A strategy is being worked on to implement the climate targets for 2030 and 2050. In order to end the use of coal in the country, they also want to use more natural gas on a transitional basis.
However, Tel Aviv has set clearer goals: by 2030, the city wants to generate 100 percent of the energy for its own community buildings and all street lamps from solar and wave power. Inna Braverman considers this to be a correct and good signal. She hopes to soon be able to build more wave power plants – in Tel Aviv and other coastal cities in Israel.