The plant will be located in northern Israel, near the Lebanese border at Manara Cliff south of Kiryat Shmona. The region comes under the jurisdiction of Upper Galilee Regional Council.
The conditional license includes several precedent conditions that need to be fulfilled. Only after the precedent conditions are fulfilled that Ellomay can hold the title of the conditional license for an electricity production license.
It is valid for a period of 72 months starting from the date on which the minister has given the approval. It is also subject to the company’s achievement of milestones set by the ministry.
One of the important condition is the financial closing including the provision of guarantees and the construction of the pumped storage hydro power plant.
Ellomay CEO and board member Ran Fridrich said: "We are pleased with this progress in our Manara Cliff pumped storage project. Obtaining the conditional license marks a substantial milestone in the continued development of the Manara Cliff pumped storage project, which is expected to be highly complex and is currently in its early stages."
Ellomay Capital, previously Nur Macroprinters was a supplier of wide format and super-wide format digital printing systems and related products. The business was sold to Hewlett-Packard Company for more than $100m in 2008.
Since 2009, the company had been focusing on energy and infrastructure sectors. At present, the company has a portfolio of 22.6MW PV plants in Italy and about 7.9MW PV plants in Spain.
The company has a 9.4% stake in Dorad Energy, which is a private energy company in Israel and has a capacity of 850MW, which is about 6% to 8% of Israel’s total energy consumption.
