The Palestinian Authority’s Energy Ministry granted its first license to build a solar plant in the West Bank, one in a series intended to help the territories generate more of their own power.

According to Bloomberg, the project will be jointly developed by Amsterdam-based Gigawatt Global Cooperatief UA and the Palestinian company Rack Tech. The $10 million plant will have installed capacity of 5.7 megawatts and is expected to be completed within a year near the city of Hebron.

The Palestinian Energy Authority said in May that it plans to auction permits to build 10 solar plants as large as 10 megawatts each in a move to reduce dependency on the Israeli electrical grid, which currently supplies nearly all power in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The authority will tender two more projects before the end of the year, according to Ariel Ezrahi, director of energy at the Office for the Quartet, an international organization trying to spur Palestinian economic development.

The project has been offered financing from the Overseas Private Investment Corp., a U.S. development-finance institution, which may cover 70 percent of the costs, according to Gigawatt Global President Yosef Abramowitz. He is in talks with pension funds in the U.S. to fund the remainder.

The company will be negotiating a power purchase agreement with the Palestinian Energy Authority on Thursday. If all goes well with this first project, the developer will aim to build another 100 megawatts in the Palestinian territories in the next four to five years. It has already been approached by six local developers seeking to partner with them, Abramowitz said.