ZenithSolar, an Israeli start-up company, has launched its first solar farm near Tel Aviv.
The project is based on a CPV system developed by Prof. David Faiman of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU).
The company has been working on this project along with a department specialising in solar energy projects at the University. The dishes used in the company’s pilot project are located at Kibbutz Kvutzat Yavne, located on the country’s coastal plain, near the city of Ashdod.
The ZenithSolar optical dish is based on a patented design, utilising multiple simple flat mirrors mounted on a plastic surface. The moulded plastic surface, divided into four quadrants, is fixed onto a rigid, high precision metal frame assembled onto an azimuth - elevation solar tracking system.
“We’re the first to develop a cogeneration machine which will harness sunlight to produce thermal and electrical energy at the same time,” Roy Segev, founder and CEO of ZenithSolar, said in a report filed by The Christian Science Monitor.
The technology, a system of rotating dishes made up of mirrors, is capable of harnessing up to 75 percent of incoming sunlight.
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