By Arora Attenborough, NoCamels -
GiraSol Renewable Energy is on a mission to help Israel’s photovoltaic (PV) sites achieve the best performance at solar farm locations all across the country.
In the fast-evolving field of renewable energy, GiraSol says, the Israeli solar ecosystem doesn’t just need new technologies—it needs a partner that can bring the best technologies from around the world to the spots where they are needed most, something it would not necessarily be able to do alone.
And that is where GiraSol comes in, harnessing high-quality services and products from multiple countries, among them Spanish performance management, Belgian drone-based data analysis and German efficiency enhancement.
By partnering with global leaders in solar technology, GiraSol says it is ensuring that Israeli solar farms can utilize the latest advancements in monitoring, cabling, and efficiency solutions.
This not only enhances the performance and reliability of the solar farms but also makes it feasible for new projects to enter the market, overcoming technological and financial barriers that would otherwise limit their development.
In 2020, Israel set itself the target of having 30 percent of its electricity generated from renewable sources within a decade, the International Trade Administration says. And solar was to account for approximately nine-tenths of that 30 percent.
New technologies are crucial for enhancing the efficiency and performance of solar farms. According to the International Energy Agency, solar power has become the cheapest source of electricity in history, thanks to advancements in technology. And, the World Economic Forum says, innovations such as advanced monitoring systems enable solar projects to generate more power and operate more efficiently, even in challenging environments.
GiraSol, which is based in the central Israel town of Matan, offers a holistic service at many of the nation’s solar panel sites, including supply, installation and servicing for the solutions that they offer, some even for the entire lifespan of the technology, CEO and founder Yoni Ben Mazia tells NoCamels.
The professional support from GiraSol’s team spans from initial project planning through implementation and ongoing monitoring. And with extensive knowledge of the laws and regulations for solar energy in Israel, the company also ensures that all projects comply with standards of the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure and the Electricity Authority.
Ben Mazia says that companies such as Sitemark in Belgium, GreenPowerMonitor in Spain and Padcon in Germany offer vital services that are simply not available in Israel. What is more, all of the international technologies that GiraSol supplies have only entered the Israel market by working with the company.
Sitemark, for example, uses software and analysis of drone footage to identify specific performance issues with the site that the on-site monitoring system may not notice.
“With Sitemark’s thermal drone imaging, it was really innovative to use this kind of technology and detect more anomalies and defaults in PV modules through these scans,” Ben Mazia says.
“With monitoring systems, you can see a lot of data and you can analyze a lot of things on site, on the operational side of the PV site, but there are some things that you cannot see.”
Similarly, GreenPowerMonitor systems help solar farms track and manage their performance, using advanced software to collect real-time data from equipment on site that assess how well a site is working and quickly identify any problems.
Padcon, meanwhile, offers a solution to Potential Induced Degradation (PID), a common problem for Israeli solar farms that occurs when electrical currents between the solar panel and its frame cause efficiency to drop over time.
While this can be due to high voltage, two challenges of the Israeli climate – heat and humidity – also cause a buildup of charges that degrade the materials in the solar panel, reducing its ability to generate electricity.
The common occurrence of this issue in Israel meant it was important to GiraSol that it provide a solution for its clients.
“Israel is a classic case [for PID],” Ben Mazia says. “We got a solution from Padcon, which was very helpful.”
Founded in 2019, GiraSol is currently working with more than 100 PV sites across Israel, primary solar farms producing more than 2 megawatts at a time.
Its major clients include Energix, a leading Israeli independent power producer (IPP) with a significant presence in the US market as well, and EDF (Électricité de France) a French electric utility company that owns and operates large-scale solar farms in Israel.
Along with the advanced monitoring and efficiency technologies, GiraSol also provides solutions such as mobile robots for cleaning solar systems, provided by SolarCleano in Luxembourg, and environmentally friendly panel cleaning additives from Chemitek Solar in Portugal.
While the company plans to keep supporting Israeli solar companies operating abroad, it sees its future in the partnerships with international companies that can bring more solutions to the Israeli market, making the energy producers more automated and more efficient.
“My vision on a large utility scale [is to provide] several technologies which are operating the sites almost autonomously,” Ben Mazia says.
