Earth Day: Israel plans wind powered lighting for coastal highway

National Roads Company is set to publish tenders for the installation of wind turbines to produce electricityfor street lighting for 20 years
 
Although in Israel, renewable energy has become almost synonymous with solar energy in its various forms it has recently been reported that Israel National Roads Company is set to publish tenders for the installation of wind turbines to produce electricityfor street lighting.
 
Israel has great potential to generate significant amounts of wind power. It has been estimated that an enormous potential capacity of up to 2,500 megawatts exist. Studies have identified several areas with sufficient wind, including the Golan Heights, Arava, Gilboa and Galilee regions.
 
Israel National Roads company believes that the progress recently achieved in contacts with the Ministry of Interior's National Planning and Building Commission will enable the publication of the tenders this year.
 
The tenders will be for supply, installation and maintenance of wind electricity production turbines for 20 years.
 
Experts noted that small wind turbines could be placed on lighting poles on the coastal highway, to take advantage of the permanent sea winds.
 
In parallel several new wind power projects are in the planning stages in Israel. In the Golan Heights,10 old wind turbines are due to be replaced by 150 modern turbines, boosting capacity to around 300MW – enough to power the entire eastern Galilee. New large and medium-scale projects are also being planned in the Arava and near Mt. Gilboa, as well as on Kibbutz Ma’agan Michael, where a combined solar and wind power scheme is expected to lead to significant savings on electricity costs.