The Kokhav Hayarden Power Generation Project is a 344MW pumped-storage hydropower station built near the Kokhav Hayarden National Park in Israel. Hutchison Water, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Yangtze River Hutchison Holdings, and Noy Fund, a private energy and infrastructure investment company based in Israel, is developing the project through a special purpose company (SPC) called Star Pumped Storage.

The 422 million pounds (600 million US dollars) project was developed on a design-build-own-operate (DBOO) basis. The construction of the project started in December 2016 and is expected to start commercial operations in 2021. Once in operation, the Kokhav Hayarden pumped storage facility, together with the nearby 300MW Gilboa pumped storage power station, aims to provide flexible backup power and stability to the Israeli national grid.

The Kokhav Hayarden Pumped Storage Hydropower Station is located in Kokhav Hayarden near Beit She'an, about 120 kilometers from Tel Aviv in northeastern Israel. The project site is located in the Gilbo Mountains, about 20 kilometers away from the Gilbo Pumped Storage Facility, which will begin operation in 2020.

Keywords: pumped storage hydropower station, foreign engineering project information

The upper dam of the pumped storage project is a 25m high and 1.8km long earth-filled dam, and the lower dam is a 1.7km long and 18m high rockfill concrete dam. The water storage capacity of the upper and lower reservoirs of the project is 3 million cubic meters each. The height difference between the reservoirs is 450m. Kokhav Hayarden Pumped Storage Power Station will be equipped with two General Electric (GE) 172MW Francis turbines and pump units in the underground power station cave. The underground waterway includes a concrete-lined diversion tunnel with a length of 755m and a diameter of 5.5m, a steel pressure pipe with a height of 670m and a diameter of 4m, and a tailrace tunnel with a length of 1.6km and a diameter of 5.5m. The project involves a total of 5.5 kilometers of underground tunnels, as well as a transformer cavern, as well as a 161kV switch station and other ground auxiliary systems.Editor/Baohongying