First Power Station in the Land of Israel Enters Preservation Process
This week, 103 years ago, on June 10, 1923, the first power station in the Land of Israel was inaugurated at the site that would later become Tel Aviv’s Electric Street. The station was the first project of Pinhas Rutenberg, the father of the electricity industry in the Land of Israel, who had founded the “Palestine Electric Corporation” less than three months earlier, a company that still exists today. The station’s diesel engines and generators produced about 780,000 kilowatt-hours, a tiny output by today’s standards, but one that was enough for the small Tel Aviv of those days and for the surrounding communities. The station building was designed by architect Yosef Berlin, the Histadrut’s house architect. It was one of the first modern construction projects in the Land of Israel after World War I and one of the sources of pride for Tel Aviv’s leaders and the Zionist movement. Operating the station and lighting the first electric bulbs powered by its engines was a significant event for the city’s residents. Ben Zion Dikovski, the company’s first commercial manager, recounted at the time: “All of Tel Aviv knew about the expected event, and there was tremendous excitement around it. Rutenberg went up to the button, pressed it, and in an instant the streetlights on Allenby and Nahalat Binyamin were lit. What excitement. What joy. We all lifted him on our shoulders and started dancing until dawn.”
Exactly two years later, on June 10, 1925, Rutenberg inaugurated two additional stations, one in Tiberias and the other in Haifa. In 1926, 100 years ago, Rutenberg finally managed to obtain the concession to generate electricity using the waters of the Jordan and Yarmouk rivers, and he began planning his major project, the hydroelectric power station at Naharayim, whose construction was completed in the spring of 1932. Rutenberg had also hoped to inaugurate it on June 10, but that year the date fell on the Shavuot holiday, so the inauguration ceremony was moved up one day, to June 9. The historic building now serves as a modern substation of the Israel Electric Corporation, where three transformers operate, supplying power to the surrounding area at a capacity of 168 megawatts. A fourth transformer will be added in the near future, increasing the area’s supply capacity. The preservation project for the building is moving forward, is expected to be completed at the end of 2027, and will connect the site’s historical heritage with the needs of the developing city.
