The Israeli Government has launched contract for one of largest PV projects ever in the country, a venture that may feature a storage element. Israeli Ministry of Finance posted documents setting out the rules of a tender that will award a 300MW PV scheme near the city of Dimona, in the Negev Desert.

Developer applicants will have between 22 January and 26 May to submit documents for a first pre-qualification phase, which will pick the finalists who will then compete for the actual tender. The Israeli government has earmarked a 2763000-square-metre site for the project and is open, the tender documents show, to considering an energy storage add-on. The government may end up requiring solar bidders to prove they or other associated third parties have got “experience or know-how” with energy storage systems. The project is structured as a public-private partnership and will be “transferred” back to the state of Israel once built.