ISRAEL BANK, FRANCE’S EDF BUY KIBBUTZ PV SUN

Arava Power, partners with Hapoalim on solar field; Bank Hapoalim lends Arava 80% of project's cost; other partner is French energy giant Electricite de France.

Sharon Udasin, April 4, 2013 (Jerusalem Post)

“Arava Power Company has ratified financial agreements to build its 40- megawatt solar field on 60 hectares of Kibbutz Ketura land [just north of the city of Eilat]…Slated to begin construction in a few months, the company will be erecting in the [sandy, dry] field across Road 90 from its 4.95-megawatt Ketura Sun field – the first ever medium-sized field in Israel.

“Arava Power has received NIS 250 million, 80 percent of the project’s overall cost, from Bank Hapoalim…Once completed at approximately the end of 2014, the field is expected to cover the equivalent of one-third of Eilat’s electricity consumption…The project is part of a cooperative engineering and financing framework shared by Arava Power and EDF-EN Israel, part of the renewable energy branch of the French energy giant Electricite de France.”

“Having received conditional approval for tariff rates from the Public Utility Authority, as well as a power purchasing agreement from the Israel Electric Corporation, the project now joins 10 other Arava Power solar projects receiving financing from Bank Hapoalim, with a cumulative capacity of about 60 megawatts…

“Founded at Kibbutz Ketura in 2006 by Yosef Abramowitz, David Rosenblatt and Ed Hofland, Arava Power inaugurated its medium field in the summer of 2011…Bank Hapoalim’s project financing unit…has in recent years been aiming to assist both public and private sectors in switching to renewable energies…”

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