- Ormat Industries
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Ormat Industries Ltd. Type Public TASE: ORMT Industry Alternative energy and Renewable energy Founded 1965 Headquarters Yavne, Israel Key people Lucien Bronicki (Chairman of the board, Dita Bronicki CEO) Products Geothermal power solutions, Energy recovery solutions Revenue 
US$ 344.83 million (2008)Operating income $ 56.41 million (2008)Profit $ 49.83 million (2008)Employees 1,069 (2008) Subsidiaries Ormat Technologies Inc. Website www.ormat.com Ormat Industries Ltd. (TASE: ORMT) is a provider of alternative and renewable energy technology. To date the company has installed over 750 power units worldwide. Ormat also owns and operates 515 MW of geothermal and recovered energy based power plants.
Contents
History
Ormat was established in 1965 as Ormat Turbines Ltd., in Yavne, Israel, by engineer Lucien Bronicki (Chairman and CTO) and wife Yehudit "Dita" Bronicki (CEO).[1]
In the late 1950s Lucien Bronicki worked in a government physics laboratory, where he developed a turbine to produce electricity from a range of energy sources, including solar; the process is known as Organic Rankine Cycle, which he co-developed with Harry Zvi Tabor. He retired from the lab to commercialize his ideas and set up the Ormat with his wife. In its early years the company focused exclusively on manufacturing of power generation equipment.[2]
During the 1970s', the energy crisis increased the interest in Ormat’s technology; the company obtained financial assistance from the Israeli government and raised additional capital from private investors to build one of the world's first power stations to produce electricity from solar energy. However the power station was not economically viable and was abandoned in 1988.[3]
During the 1980s Ormat began to build systems to generate electricity by utilizing recovered energy (heat emitted during industrial processes). The company also started utilizing its theology to generated electricity from geothermal sources.
In the 1990s the company changed its strategy and decided not only to provide the power generation equipment, but also to own and manage alternative and renewable energy power stations.
In 1991 Ormat Industries listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and is currently included in the TA-25 Index.
Operations
The majority of Ormat Industries’ activities are currently held within its subsidiary Ormat Technology Inc. (NYSE: ORA) a company listed on the New York Stock Exchange and based in Reno, Nevada. The company’s main production facilities are based in Yavne, Israel.
The company owns and operates geothermal power plants in California, Nevada, Hawaii, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Kenya, New Zealand and Indonesia.
Technologies
20MW binary power plant by Ormat at Steamboat Springs, Nevada, USA.
Ormat’s core technology, the Ormat Energy Converter (OEC)- power generation unit, is used for converting low and medium temperature heat into electrical energy. The OECs are designed for the specific conditions of a wide variety of heat sources. Its main components include a vaporizer/preheater, turbogenerator, air-cooled or water-cooled condenser, feed pump and controls. Ormat has supplied more than 900 MW of geothermal and recovered energy generation (REG) power units, based on OEC technology, logging millions of hours of operating experience.
Geothermal Energy
Ormat’s technology is highly optimized for use in geothermal energy generation, by efficiently converting the heat energy that comes from the Earth's molten interior, deep in the Earth's crust. In location where the heat is brought near to the surface due to movements in the Earth's crustal plates by intrusion of molten magma and by deep circulation of groundwater. Ormat is the third largest geothermal producer in the United States.
Recovered Energy
Ormat’s technology is also suitable for Recovered energy power generation (REG), which involves capturing unused waste heat from industrial processes and converting it into electricity that can be sold to power purchasers or used on site without any additional fuel consumption and with zero emission. Ormat’s recovered energy solutions have been deployed in projects in Germany, Canada, India, USA and Japan.
Solar Energy
In the 1980s Ormat build and operated one of the world's first power stations to produce electricity from solar energy; the plant was located just north of the Dead Sea in Israel.[3]
The plant utilized a technology known as Solar pond, a large-scale solar thermal energy collector with integral heat storage for supplying thermal energy. It was the largest operating solar pond ever build for electricity generation and operated up until 1988. It had an area of 210,000 m² and gave an electrical output of 5 MW.[4]
Since the decommissioning of the Solar pool project Ormat was not active in the solar energy market, but on October 2009 announced that its subsidiary, Ormat Systems Ltd., has signed a Joint venture Agreement with Sunday Energy Ltd. to develop, construct and operate solar-photovoltaic energy systems in Israel with a total capacity of 36 MW.[5]
Oil sands
Ormat has developed an energy efficient technology for extracting crude oil from Oil sands named OrCrude. The OrCrude process enables to produce crude oil more efficiently then other technologies by combining it with gasification, which substantially reduces the requirement for natural gas, typically the largest input cost in an in-situ oil sands project. The technology is currently being utilized in the Long Lake project a joint venture between Nexen Inc. (TSX: NXY) and OPTI Canada.[6]
Joint Ventures
OPTI Canada
OPTI Canada Inc. (TSX: OPC) was created in 1999 to develop integrated bitumen and heavy oil projects using Ormat's OrCrude upgrading technology. The company is based in Calgary and is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. OPTI is focused on developing the fourth and next major integrated oil sands project in Canada, Phase 1 of the Long Lake Project (the Project), in a joint venture with Nexen Inc. in which OPTI Canada has a 35 percent working interest.
OrFuel
Orfuel Inc. a US subsidiary of Ormat Industries is involved in a joint venture with Evogene Ltd. (TASE: EVGN) to produced biodiesel from castor plants, in Namibia, Africa.[7]
Spin offs
Through the years Ormat was involved in establishment and development of several companies, including:
Orbotech
Orbotech (NASDAQ: ORBK) which develops and manufactures automated optical inspection (AOI) systems for bare and assembled Printed circuit boards and Flat panel displays. The company's systems, imaging and computer-aided manufacturing (CAM and Engineering) technologies enable electronic manufacturers to achieve the increased yields and throughput essential for electronics production.
Orad
Orad Hi-Tec Systems Ltd. developer of video and real-time image processing technologies for TV broadcasting, Internet, production studio and sports events.
External links
References
- ^ Lucien Bronicki: Executive Profile & Biography - BusinessWeek, http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=1334250&ric=ORA, retrieved 2009-10-19
- ^ "Beyond Fossil Fuels: Lucien Bronicki on Geothermal Energy", Scientific American - April 2009, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=energy-bronicki-ormat-technologies
- ^ a b Israel's 150-KW Solar Pond, Mother Earth News May/June 1980, http://www.motherearthnews.com/Modern-Homesteading/1980-05-01/Israels-150-KW-Solar-Pond.aspx
- ^ Carl Nielson, Aliakbar Akbarzedeh, John Andrews, Humberto R Becerra L and Peter Golding, 'The History of Solar Pond Science & Technology', Proceedings of the International Solar Energy Society, 2005.
- ^ Ormat Signs Joint Venture Agreement for Solar (PV) Power Systems, Reuters, 2009-10-19, http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS80183+19-Oct-2009+PRN20091019, retrieved 2009-10-19
- ^ The Long Lake Project Overview, Nexen Inc., http://www.nexeninc.com/files/presentations/nexen_jan1106.pdf, retrieved 2009-10-19
- ^ Leviev Group, Evogene and Orfuel to Establish a Biodiesel Company in Namibia, Africa, http://www.evogene.com/news.asp?new_id=67, retrieved 2009-10-19
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