Ormat Technologies

Ormat was established in 1965 as Ormat Turbines Ltd. (later renamed Ormat Industries), in Yavne, Israel, by engineer Lucien Bronicki, the company's chairman and CTO until 2014, and his wife Yehudit "Dita" Bronicki, who was CEO until 2014.

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 the organic Rankine cycle, which he co-developed with Harry Zvi Tabor. He retired from the lab to commercialize his ideas. In its early years the company focused exclusively on manufacturing power generation equipment.

The 1970s energy crisis increased interest in efficient generation technology. The firm obtained financial assistance from the Israeli government and raised capital from private investors to build one of the world's first solar-driven power stations. However the power station was not economically viable and was abandoned in 1988.

During the 1980s, the firm developed generation systems utilizing recovered energy, i.e. heat emitted during industrial processes. It also applied its technology to generate electricity from geothermal sources.

In 1986, the firm designed and supplied geothermal power systems to the Kawerau Power Station in New Zealand. Since then, it has built 13 geothermal power plants in that country. In 1989, the firm supplied geothermal equipment for the regional heating system at Sudurnes Iceland, utilizing the abundant local geothermal resources to provide heating for 20,000 people.

In the 1990s the firm decided not only to provide power generation equipment, but also to own and operate alternative and renewable energy power stations.

In 1991, the firm, then known as Ormat Industries, became listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. In 1992, Ormat acquired a controlling stake in Bet Shemesh Engines, a manufacturer of parts for jet engines, that also overhauls, maintains and assembles jet engines. In 2005, Ormat sold its shares in the company.

In 2004, Ormat Technologies completed an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange raising $100 million. Ormat Technologies was founded in 1994 as a US subsidiary of Ormat Industries. Following the initial public offering, Ormat Industries was restructured as a holding company that was still listed in the exchange, while shifting all its operations to the subsidiary Ormat Technologies.

Operations

The company owns and operates geothermal power plants in US, Guatemala, Kenya, Honduras and Guadeloupe.

Technologies

Thermal energy

The firm's core technology is the Ormat Energy Converter power generation unit. It converts low and medium temperature heat into electrical energy, with low or zero emission of CO2 and pollutants. The main components are a vaporizer/preheater, turbo-generator, air-cooled or water-cooled condenser, feed pump and controls. The firm has installed more than 900 MW of geothermal and recovered energy generation (REG) power units, based on this technology.

The technology is optimized for use in geothermal energy generation, and the firm is the third largest geothermal producer in the United States. The technology is also suitable for recovered energy power generation, which converts waste heat from industrial processes into electricity that can be used on site or sold to power generation utilities. The firm's recovered energy technology was deployed in projects in Germany, Canada, India, USA, New Zealand and Japan.

Solar energy

In the 1980s Ormat built and operated one of the world's first power stations to produce electricity from solar energy, located just north of the Dead Sea in Israel. The plant utilized a solar pond, a large-scale solar thermal energy collector with integral heat storage. It was the largest operating solar pond ever built for electricity generation and operated until 1988. It had an area of 210,000 m2 and gave an electrical output of 5 MW.