The farms will be set up at Ramat Hasirin and on the Gilboa ridge.
The National Planning and Building Council decided at its meeting this week to deposit two partial outline plans for establishing wind turbine farms fro generating electricity, one at Ramat Sirin near Menahamia, and the other on the Gilboa ridge, near Kibbutz Maaleh Hagilboa.
These plans represent part of the implementation of the decision by the government on November 4, 2002 that steps should be taken to create alternative non-polluting energy sources.
The total output of the wind turbine farms is 50 megawatts: 35 megawatts at Ramat Hasirin, and 15 megawatts on the Gilboa. The Ramat Hasirin farm will have about 40 wind turbines, spread out over four kilometers. The Gilboa farm will comprise about 20 turbines, spread over 2 kilometers. Each turbine will be 65 meters high.
At the Gilboa site, it is planned to set up a visitors center and a scenic walkway for tourists in combination with the wind turbine farm. The two wind turbine farms are planned to provide a total of some 110 million kilowatt-hours of electricity a year. This is the amount of electricity consumed by about 18,000 households.
Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on August 7, 2003