Economics (Energy Managment) |
Yoram Valent from Bar Ilan University in Israel won the GE Smart Grid Award for GridON, a spin-out commercialising Valent's innovative Fault Current Limiter (FCL) which improves control of fault currents on electricity grids. GridON's technology is more effective than existing solutions and less costly. Short circuits are becoming more frequent as electricity networks expand to meet increasing energy demand and carry renewable sources of energy that flow intermittently. The judges noted that GridON's technology is important because when electricity grids operate close to capacity, intermittent flows can shut down the entire system. GE's participation in ACES 2011 is part of a $200 million investment programme to invest in new 'smart grid' technologies, the GE 'ecomagination' challenge.
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In the early 1970s, Israel became the first country to require that every rooftop install a solar power system to generate the energy needed to heat water. David Rosenblatt, Vice Chairman, Arava Power said: "The number of consumers that will benefit from that (new power plant) is anticipated to be 8,000, but the way that it works is that the field is directly connected to Israel's grid and the Israel electric company distributes the energy as needed." The Siemens corporation recently invested $15 million dollars in Israeli Arava, buying 40% of the company. The project is green and environmentally-friendly for more reasons than one. In 20 years it is projected that the land will be returned to its previous state and 99% of the materials we used will go to recycling. Many ethnic Bedouins live in southern Israel, and with their unemployment rate exceeding 30%, many are hoping additional plants will turn into jobs needed for the construction and developing the field from scratch.
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