Israeli green thermal storage company signs 7-year deal with Wolfson Hospital
Brenmiller Energy tech will replace diesel boilers, is expected to help cut fuel oil use to ‘nearly zero,’ reduce pollution, and save up to $1.3 million annually
Sue Surkes is The Times of Israel's environment reporter
Israeli thermal energy storage company Brenmiller Energy announced Thursday that it has signed a seven-year, $3.55 million project with Wolfson Medical Center in Holon, outside Tel Aviv.
Gadi Davidovitz, chief engineer at the public hospital, said the project was expected to reduce the facility’s fuel oil consumption to “nearly zero.”
Brenmiller’s technology, already in use in Israel, the US, Romania, Italy and Brazil, seeks to help industry wean itself off fossil fuels. Its units comprise electrical heaters and crushed rock in which energy can be stored at very high temperatures. The source of energy might be solar, wind, or the grid (during off-peak hours, when energy is relatively cheap). Heat can also be taken from exhaust pipes, or from the burning of biomass (plant-based materials).
The energy can be released, whenever needed, as steam, hot water, or hot air.
In the case of Wolfson Medical Center — the first hospital in which Brenmiller is installing its technology — the units will replace old diesel boilers that are both costly and polluting.
According to estimates from the Finance Ministry, which had to approve the deal, the electric heat provided by Brenmiller’s technology could save the hospital up to $1.3 million annually and cut the hospital’s local carbon footprint by 3,900 tons per year.
Brenmiller will provide the upfront money, and the hospital will repay it over seven years out of savings made.
The Israel Innovation Authority will give the company a grant of up to $450,000 to get the project off the ground.
Brenmiller’s chairman and CEO, Avi Brenmiller said, “This is just the beginning of wide-scale thermal energy system adoption, which we believe will become the standard in clean energy storage for industrial and municipal facilities worldwide.”
Last year, it opened its first production plant, in the southern Israeli city of Dimona.
