Israel connected the Ketura Solar field to its national power grid today, the financial website Globes reported. The field is located in Kibbutz Ketura in Israel’s Aravah valley.

The “Ketura Solar” field was connected on Wednesday to the national electric grid. It is one of the largest solar parks in Israel with a capacity of 40 MW, making it the largest to be currently part of the grid. The field is jointly owned by Arava Power and EDF Énergies Nouvelles Israel a subsidiary of the French national electric corporation.

The planning and development for the project began in 2009 until its financing was approved in 2013. The construction of the array lasted some seven months, during which 140,343 solar panels were installed over 542 dunams (134 acres) at a cost of more than 300 million shekels ($79 million). …

Arava Power CEO Jonathan Cohen said that the latest connection to the national grid raises the contribution of the firm’s projects to more than 100 MW.

The connection marked the latest step in an ambitious plan by the Israeli government to secure 10% of its power from renewable resources by 2020. In The Sun Keeps Shining on Yosef Abramowitz, which was published in the July 2014 issue of The Tower Magazine, Assaf Dudai detailed Israel’s solar energy efforts by profiling one of its best-known solar power pioneers:

Abramowitz is eager to take up where Ben-Gurion left off. “We always believed that if there are benefits for the residents of the Arava, the desert will finally bloom,” he says, “so all of Arava Power’s efforts are directed at the Arava.” By the end of 2015, Arava Power’s eight solar fields will provide the entire electric supply for Eilat, Israel’s southernmost city. That’s a remarkable achievement by global standards, but the road to it was mighty dusty.

[Photo: Arava Power Company: Israel’s Solar Pioneer / YouTube ]