Ben-Eliezer signs second license for pumped storage power station

By EHUD ZION WALDOKS
National Infrastructures Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer granted a conditional license to Clal Industries and Investments on Monday to build a pumped storage power station. A pumped storage station pumps water when electricity costs are low (such as at night) from a lower reservoir to a higher one. At peak time, during the day, the water flows back into the lower reservoir and turns a turbine in the process which produces electricity. The new 220 MW station will be built near the Nesher quarry next to Haifa. It is scheduled for completion by 2015. Ben-Eliezer granted the first license for a pumped storage station about two weeks ago to P.S.P. Investments for a 300-MW station to be built at Maale Gilboa. Ben-Eliezer said he was hoping for 800 MW from pumped storage plants by the middle of the next decade. The Clal license is conditional - if the operator meets all the conditions, then they will receive a permanent license. Clal Energy CEO Dan Vardi said it had not been decided what type of water, whether fresh or treated sewage, would be used to meet the station's 1.3 million-cubic meter requirements.