Written and Photographed by Nahum Eisenstadt
In back of the statue of Ruth that CAARI is posing on is 20 acres of solar panels that became functional only a few months ago. They supply power to the Israel Electric Company power grid and proved that this method of power generation is possible and efficient. It pays for itself inside of seven years and supplies five MW of electricity, enough to power 4 Kibbutzim in the area. There are 18,600 solar panels in this field. There is another field like this one planned to be built just south of the date palm grove on the east side of the Kibbutz fields on the Jordanian border that will be eight times bigger and supply 40 MW of power. Israel generates much less electricity using solar energy than other Western countries do at the moment. The goal is to reach 15% of generated power from solar energy.