The “Rabin Lights” electric power plant is the largest power station in Israel. It is also know as “Hadera’s chimney” due to its structure and location.
The station provides approximately 2,590 mega watt, about a quarter of Israel’s consumption. For this purpose it consumes about 18 thousand tons of coal per year and some 320 million cubic meters of sea water for cooling. That is why the station is located on the coast, along with the need to dismantle the large amount of coal by a special platform.
Works on the design and construction of the station started in 1973 and was originally planned to be based on oil. After the Yom Kippur War and the rise in world oil prices following the Arab embargo, it was decided to switch to coal.
Between 2007-2009 a large plant for seawater desalination was built at the south end of the station complex with a desalination capacity of 127 million cubic meters of water a year.
In 2011 it was decided to convert the station to be able to process both gas and coal, to take advantage of the great availability of gas in Israel
The station chimneys are a prominent landmark in the northern coastal plain, and are highly visible. The first two chimneys are 265 meters high, and the northern one rises to an altitude of 300 meters. It was the tallest building in Israel till 2008.
The modern-Hebrew word for electricity “hashmal” comes from the prophetic visions of Ezekiel and describes the character or color or shape of angels.
The Greek translation of the Bible translated the word as ‘electron’ meaning a mixture of silver and gold. This word was then used for the English word electricity we know so well. The poet Yehuda Leib Gordon suggested using the word “Hashmala” as a translation to Hebrew, though it was “hashmal” that caught on in modern Hebrew
