"Everyone tends to ignore the power of consistent optimism," says Ofer Yanai, founder and chairman of Nofer Energy, one of the largest solar energy companies in the world. Yanai (48), used that consistent optimism and determination to lead Nofer Energy to its position The current as a global leader in investments in renewable energy.
Yanai, whose story about the renewable energy revolution, "New Under the Sun" will be published next week in the English language, will be among the leading speakers at the "Jerusalem Post" group conference, which will be held this Monday in New York. In an extensive interview with the Jerusalem Post, Yanai talks about the new developments in the field of renewable energy, how to overcome business failure, personal tragedy, and his formula for success.
Yanai, the second of eight children, was born in 1975 to Mordechai and Tony Yanai, who immigrated to Israel in the 1950s. Yanai's father was born in Tunisia, after he immigrated to Israel with his family, they lived in the Bibanal crossing. His mother Toni and her family, who immigrated from Libya, came to live in the north of the country, in Hazor HaGalilit. After their marriage, Mordechai and Tony moved to live in Yavne, and became successful educators. Mordechai was the director of the religious high school in the city, and his mother was a kindergarten teacher. "We grew up in Yavne, which was then on the outskirts of the State of Israel," says Yanai about his childhood. "The best thing about growing up in the periphery was that you weren't given a chance to succeed, and that's why the opportunities that did appear were something that weren't supposed to happen. When you look at it like that, you say to yourself why limit myself?'"
Yanai studied at a high school yeshiva in Nahalim, at the Mount Etzion settlement yeshiva in Alon Shavuot and served in the army in the Armored Corps. After his military service, he was accepted into the Hebrew University's "Amirim" program, the university's interdisciplinary honors program. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in physics, mathematics and computer science. In 2001 Yanai founded his first business venture, a food delivery service called Go4Eat. The idea was ahead of its time, it is still a time before smart phones penetrated the market, and the business failed. Yanai went back to school, graduated with a master's degree in business administration at Ben Gurion University. At the same time as studying for a master's degree in business administration, Yanai learned about renewable energy produced from natural sources, which are replenished at a higher rate than their consumption, such as sunlight and wind. At this point, Yanai decided to enter the field of solar energy.
The pond lily
In 2012, Yanai founded Nofer Energy. As he explains, this putting has meaning for him. "At the time I was working in the field of renewable energy in Italy, and I would drive about 1,200 km every day across the country. I thought to myself that if I want to start a successful company, I must understand that the chaos that renewable energy creates in the market is permanent. Our existing traditional energy sources are extremely conservative. The efficiency there hasn't changed for two decades, and the price hasn't changed either. I thought to myself then that I want to start a company that can thrive on this chaos. What is a good name for it? Plants and trees usually need solid soil to grow, but there is one plant, the pond lily, or in Hebrew "Nuper", which is able to thrive even on water." That's how "Nuper Energy" was born.
At the beginning of the company's journey, Yanai tried to sell solar panels directly to localities, but the project stalled when it was met with too much government bureaucracy. The commercial and marketing breakthrough came in 2012. "I did an analysis of the bureaucracy in the Israeli market," explains Yanai, "and I noticed that the collective movement was considered a government distribution company, just like the electric company, meaning without bureaucratic restrictions."
"Nofer Energy" began selling solar panels to the kibbutz movement as a source of renewable energy, and by 2015 had completed many projects, installing over a thousand solar panel systems on roofs. At the same time, Yanai thought about how Israel could reach a situation where it produces 10% of its energy from renewable energy, which was at the time the government's goal for 2020. "I thought we needed something that was a combination of the simplicity of the solar systems on the roofs – but with the size of the solar systems in the ground," explains Yanai .
The breakthrough came by implementing a unique photovoltaic technology, a complex system of solar panels, which can be installed on bodies of water such as lakes or reservoirs, instead of solid structures such as roofs. These systems are currently in use all over Israel, and as Shinai explains, do not pose any threat or environmental danger to fish. In fact, the opposite is true. The floating panels are both efficient and ecological.
In December 2020, Nofer Energy was issued on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, the second largest IPO in Israel's history, after the Azrieli Group. Since then the company continues to expand its activities beyond the borders of the country. Today "Nofer Energy" has an extensive portfolio with over 2,000 projects. It has subsidiaries in seven countries, throughout Europe and the American continent, and it operates large projects in the fields of renewable energy and energy storage, which produce a thousand megawatts of renewable energy.
"Cheaper and cleaner than natural gas"
Yanai's book, "New Under the Sun", was published for the first time in the Hebrew language in 2022. According to Yanai, he wrote the book in response to the rising popularity of renewable energy, so that the general public could better understand the concepts. "When we started in 2010," he continues, "the field of renewable energy was a nice idea. It was very subsidized and very expensive, but no one imagined that it would be possible to compete with traditional power plants. In the last decade, the price has dropped by 85%, the efficiency has increased and the capacity has become huge. It cannot be denied that solar energy is cheaper and cleaner than natural gas."
Yanai predicts that renewable energy will take over the market and become the main source of energy in the world. In 2022, 30% of all global energy comes from renewable energy, and for the first time, he notes, carbon emissions have decreased worldwide. "This is a battle that will end in less than a decade," he says. "The transition of the global energy systems to renewable energy is an event on a biblical scale. It's amazing, and I'm very happy to be part of this process in Israel. At the same time, we are making progress in many territories around the world with this unique and innovative idea." According to him, raising the issue of climate change as the only reason for promoting renewable energy is not a wise move. According to him, there are enough other, valid reasons that will help promote renewable energy as a clean and inexhaustible source of energy.
"If you reach 100% renewable energy," says Yanai, "you will get clean and cheaper energy than with the use of natural gas. Later, the cost of energy production will eventually drop to zero. He explains that countries that accelerate the transition to renewable energy will arrive quickly More for lower costs than other markets. "This will be very significant in about 20-25 years, but you have to start playing now if you want to be in one of the first places in the future. Currently, Israel is a little behind."
Yanai explains that while Israel has talented entrepreneurs, a relatively small market and a lot of sunlight, only 12% of the country's energy comes from renewable sources. "We need to diversify and use other sources such as wind energy and hydro (water) power." In his book, Yanai notes the bureaucratic obstacles he encountered in establishing the company. He suggests that an open and honest dialogue between the regulators and entrepreneurs is essential for success.
The book also discusses the social theory of Malthusianism, a theory named after Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834), who proposed that while the population grows exponentially, without end, the growth of the food supply is linear and will eventually stop and disappear. However, despite the fact that the world's population has grown from 2 billion to almost 8 billion since the nineteenth century, innovation and technology have helped expand the food supply and prevented disaster. Similarly, Yanai explains, while energy resources like coal and oil are finite, energy from the sun is clean and renewable.
"Work in full partnership"
Yanai attributes many of his successes in life to his mother's advice to always continue learning and developing. He admits that his taste in reading has changed over the years, from fiction to biographies, and he reads books dealing with the analysis of different industries. Yanai also developed an interest in geopolitics because, as he points out: "Every country is a potential market that we would like to enter at some point." He added that studying the Talmud, which required the interpretation of complex and sometimes ambiguous texts, helped him sharpen his business sense. "It's quite similar to what happens in the business world", he explains, nobody gives you a textbook and says look, this is the way to make money in the energy market.
If we return to the topic with which we opened the interview, the need to maintain positivity and optimism in business and in life, this thing gets a particularly strong expression when Yanai mentions the death of his wife Tali from cancer, about five years ago. Since the mother's death, Yanai has been raising their daughter, Shira The 13-year-old, as a single parent. When asked if he encourages her to study high-tech or energy, he replies with a smile: "I'm glad she likes to read. She will find her way in life, and all options will be open to her."
Yanai's determination and optimism, especially when he encounters difficulties and challenges, are especially expressed in the story of his daughter's birthday, during the first outbreak of the Corona epidemic in March 2020. Every year, on his daughter's birthday, Yanai wakes her up in the morning with a balloon and a cake. The night before his birthday, during the first quarantine of the plague, he came home late from work and realized that he had forgotten to buy a cake.
He didn't flinch. Yanai called his neighbor and asked her to bake a cake. She agreed and brought it to him in the middle of the night. He then called a toy store, begged and coaxed the owner to bring him balloons at 3 in the morning, and deliver them through the window.
Yanai mentions two important lessons he learned in life, which helped him in his career: understanding the importance of teamwork, and expressing himself as a leader. "You can't do everything alone," he explains. "You must work in full partnership with your colleagues and employees. They should complement you with their abilities and temperament." Regarding leadership, he says that it "requires you to say what you think, to make sure that everyone will understand your opinions and ideas, and be influenced by what you say." Yanai expresses his opinion on the role of entrepreneurs in society today. "They are the key", he says, "the biggest projects in the world today are managed by the entrepreneurs and not by politicians".
As the interview ends, Yanai provides details on what he will discuss at the Jerusalem Post conference next week in New York, including what he calls a "mega-project" to modernize water and electricity supplies in Africa. A project that will also involve Israel, alongside other Arab countries. "In 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine," says Yanai, "Putin thought no one would stop him because he controlled Russian natural gas. Putin used the old energy as a weapon. I want to present a different view, that we can use energy not as a weapon, but as a means to create Prosperity and peace."
This article was written in collaboration with "Nofer Energy" company
