Lithium batteries developed by a subsidiary of the Saft Group will power a heliostat solar system that can generate electricity for 120,000 homes on the Israeli desert.
The rechargeable lithium battery packs made by Tadiran will power the 50,000 heliostats that are being built by power generation firm Alstom, which is partnering BrightSource Energy for the first time in the project.
A heliostat, from the Greek word for sun, ‘helios’, is a mirror that moves as the Earth orbits so that it can keep reflecting the sunlight onto a predetermined target.
The heliostats, which will be built on an area of 1.2 square miles, will track the sun on two axes and reflect sunlight on to a boiler on top of a 240-metre tower at the so-called Ashalim Station.
When the concentrated sunlight strikes the solar receiver, it creates superheated steam, which is used to turn a turbine and generate electricity.
During the day Tadiran’s rechargeable energy packs will drive the heliostat motors and power device communications.
In June, US-based concentrating solar power (CSP) company BrightSource Energy laid the cornerstone of the Ashalim Solar project, one of the largest of its kind in the world, in the southern Negev desert region of Israel.
The project will supply 320 GWh of electricity a year to Israel’s grid on completion in 2017, which should bring the proportion of Israel’s renewable energy source-generated electricity to 10%.
