Ormat Technologies

Ormat Technologies, Inc. is an international company based in Reno, Nevada, United States. Ormat supplies alternative and renewable geothermal energy technology. The company has built over 190 power plants and installed over 3,200 MW of output. As of January 2021 it owns and operates 933 MW of geothermal and recovered energy based power plants. Ormat has supplied over 1000 turbochargers worldwide, in North America, South America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. The company's products also include turbines, generators, and heat exchangers.

The company's share is a dual stock traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange since 1991 and on the New York Stock Exchange since 2004 under the symbol ORA, and is part of the Tel Aviv 35 Index and the Tel Aviv Tech-Elite Index. The company's main production facilities are located in Yavne, Israel.[1][2]

History

Ormat was established in 1965 as Ormat Turbines Ltd. (later renamed Ormat Industries), in Yavne, Israel, by engineer Lucien Bronicki, the company's chairman and CTO until 2014, and his wife Yehudit "Dita" Bronicki, who served as CEO until 2014.[3]

Technologies

Thermal energy

The firm's core technology is the Ormat Energy Converter power generation unit. It converts low and medium temperature heat into electrical energy, with low or zero emission of and pollutants. The main components are a vaporizer/preheater, turbo-generator, air-cooled or water-cooled condenser, feed pump and controls. The firm has installed more than 900 MW of geothermal and recovered energy generation (REG) power units, based on this technology.

The technology is optimized for use in geothermal energy generation, and the firm is the third largest geothermal producer in the United States. The technology is also suitable for recovered energy power generation, which converts waste heat from industrial processes into electricity that can be used on site or sold to power generation utilities. The firm's recovered energy technology was deployed in projects in Germany, Canada, India, USA, New Zealand[10] and Japan.

Solar energy

In the 1980s Ormat built and operated one of the world's first power stations to produce electricity from solar energy, located just north of the Dead Sea in Israel.[5] The plant utilized a solar pond, a large-scale solar thermal energy collector with integral heat storage. It was the largest operating solar pond ever built for electricity generation and operated until 1988. It had an area of 210,000 m2 and gave an electrical output of 5 MW.[11]

After the decommissioning of the solar pond project, the firm was not active in the solar energy market until its entry into the Solar PV market.

Oil sands

Ormat's former parent company, Ormat Industries Ltd., developed an energy-efficient technology, OrCrude, for extracting crude oil from oil sands. The process is claimed to be more efficient than other technologies as it includes gasification, which substantially reduces the requirement for natural gas, typically the largest input cost in an in-situ oil sands project. The technology is used in the Long Lake project, a former joint venture between Nexen and OPTI Canada.[12] In 2010, Ormat Industries sold all its holdings (5.1%) in OPTI Canada. In 2011, OPTI Canada was acquired by CNOOC Luxembourg S.à r.l, an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of CNOOC Limited.

type	Public
traded as	nyse: ORA S&P 400 component tase: ORA TA-35 Index component
isin	isin: US6866881021
founded	1965
founders	Lucien and Dita Bronicki
hq location	Reno, Nevada, U.S.
industry	Alternative energy Renewable energy
products	Geothermal power Energy recovery
revenue	US$703 million
revenue year	2022
operating income	US$175 million
income year	2022
net income	US$63 million
net income year	2022
assets	US$4.45 billion
assets year	2022
equity	US$1.97 billion
equity year	2022
num employees	1,576 (December 31, 2023)
website	ormat.com

History

Operations

Technologies

Thermal energy

Solar energy

Oil sands

Spin offs

External links

References