Sources inform ''Globes'' that former Ormat Industries Ltd. (TASE: ORMT) VP business development Hezi Ram is collaborating with start-up Advanced Solar Power Ltd. (ASP) through his New York investment company. The Beer Tuvia-based start-up is developing thermosolar energy technology similar to that of Solel Solar Systems Ltd., and has large ambitions for all that it is still a small firm.
Ram told "Globes" that he is interested in thermosolar energy technology.
Ram was one of Ormat's senior vice presidents and considered heir apparent to Ormat CEO Yehudit Bronicki, until she and her husband, Ormat chairman and CTO Yehuda Bronicki appointed their son Yoram Bronicki as CEO of Ormat Technologies Inc. (NYSE: ORA), which handles the company's geothermal business. The appointment was made during their power struggle against Chaim Katzman, who acquired a large stake in Ormat Industries through Gazit Inc. (TASE: GZIT), and it signaled that the Bronickis had no intention of foregoing family control of the company. Ram left the company to found an investment firm.
Ram now serves as an advisor to ASP, which is run by CEO Sharon Roded and chairman Raphael Rudnyk. The two men founded Marshall Isotopes Ltd., a producer of Oxygen isotopes enriched water for PET scanners, in 1998 and managed it ever since. Two years ago, they decided to enter the thermosolar energy business, which they perceived as being the most accessible in business terms in the globally growing clean energy boom.
ASP is close to completing the development of its technology, and has built a prototype with 12 parabolic mirrors at the Beer Tuvia industrial zone. Roded confirmed the details, and said that the company had raised $1.5 million to date. Part of the investment came from Marshall Isotope and the rest from Swiss investors.
With the completion of the prototype, ASP plans to raise $15 million to build a factory, probably in Israel, to manufacture components, and to built a one-megawatt pilot power plant. The purpose, says Roded is "in order to obtain financing for large project of 50 megawatts or greater."
How did you meet Ram?
Roded: "Because we're old friends, I approached him, and he advises ASP in finding investors. Later, we may expand the collaboration in the US, where he works."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on August 12, 2008
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