Solar power in Israel

Solar power in Israel refers to the use of solar energy in Israel, which began in the early days of the state. In the 1950s, Levi Yissar developed a solar water heater to address the energy shortages that plagued the new country. By 1967 around one in twenty households heated its water with the sun and 50,000 solar heaters had been sold. With the 1970s oil crisis, Harry Zvi Tabor, the father of Israel's solar industry, developed the prototype of the solar water heater now used in over 90% of Israeli homes. Israeli engineers have been at the cutting edge of solar energy technology and its solar companies work on projects around the world. However, even though Israeli engineers have been involved in both photovoltaic and concentrated solar power, the earliest Israeli companies which have become market leaders in their respective fields have all been involved in concentrated solar power. Some notable examples of this are BrightSource, Solel and Brenmiller Energy which all deal with utility scale projects. Additionally, Herzliya based SolarEdge has become a market leader in inverters for non-utility scale photovoltaic solar power.

With an original lack of fossil fuel reserves and the country's tenuous relations with its oil-rich neighbors, the search for a stable source of energy is a national priority. Starting in 2009, Israel found natural gas reserves within their exclusive economic zone which may reduce urgency of solar development. Solar technology in Israel has advanced to the point where it is almost cost-competitive with fossil fuels. The high annual incidence of sunshine in the Negev Desert has spurred an internationally renowned solar research and development industry. At the end of 2008, a feed-in tariff scheme was approved which has led to many residential and commercial solar energy power station projects.

Israel's goal is to produce ten percent of the country's energy from renewable sources by 2020.

In 1949, prime minister David Ben-Gurion offered Harry Zvi Tabor a job on the 'physics and engineering desk' of the Research Council of Israel, which he accepted. His first task was to create an Israeli national laboratory to create standards amongst the different measurements in use in the country, primarily British, Ottoman and metric. Once the laboratory was established, he focused on solar energy for research and development.

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