The Nevada Company Ormat Technologies announced that Ormat Subsidiaries Ltd., its Israeli subsidiary, entered into a Joint Venture Agreement (JVA) with Sunday Energy Ltd. Sunday is a private Israeli energy company and the agreement will be to construct and operate solar-photovoltaic energy systems with a total capacity of 36 MW throughout Israel.
According to the JVA, Ormat will now own 70% of each special purpose entity (SPE) with Sunday contributing the rights to all of its property and roofs required to develop solar energy systems above 1 MW to SPE’s.
The agreement between Ormat and Sunday will have major effects throughout the industry. Sunday is a leading developer in the Israeli PV market while Ormat has over four decades of experience in the development, construction, financing and operation of hundreds of megawatts of renewable energy projects worldwide.
The estimated capital expenditure for 36 MW of solar power systems is approximately $195 million with the electricity to be sold to the Israeli Electric Corporation which will represent Ormat’s commercial entry into the solar energy market and its first major devotement in the solar photovoltaic market in Israel.
Leading the way at Ormat is Lucien Bronicki who co-founded the company in 1965 and has a wide array of experience from working in the power industry since 1958. Bronicki is the Chairman of the Board and the Chief Technology Officer of Ormat and has provided an aggressive management approach that has led to success for over 50 years.
Bronicki was quoted as saying, “Ormat’s commercial activity in the solar energy market is part of a strategic plan to be a leading player in renewable energy. We have a long, rich history in renewable energy that includes activity in solar energy that we believe we can leverage to bring unique benefits to this project. Our connection to solar energy goes back over 30 years to the solar pond project that we developed between 1977 and 1984. Our work on the solar pond created the technological foundation for our geothermal technology, which today positions Ormat as the industry leader. We are pleased to finally add an Israeli solar installation, to the current 1,200 MW of Geothermal and Recovered Energy power plants that Ormat has installed throughout the years. We are looking at this joint venture as an attractive business opportunity derived by the reduction in solar PV modules prices and the increase in their supply on one hand and the expected Israeli feed-in tariff for large solar PV systems on the other hand.”
Currently, Ormat is trading in the $41.00 range and is well off of its 52-week low of $21.83. This worldwide company gained a great deal of positive publicity when it was featured in “The Motley Fool” on October 12th of this year.
Ormat is a company that is poised to make a major statement on Wall Street. With a seasoned management team in place and successful subsidiaries, Ormat is well positioned for greatness.
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