The plant was constructed – under concession from the Mandatory government – by Pinhas Rutenberg's Palestine Electric Corporation, based on a plan put forward in 1926. It followed his original 1920 Rutenberg plan to build ten reservoirs and fourteen hydroelectric plants on the Jordan river.[1][2] Financial capital for the project came from the worldwide Jewish community, organized with limited publicity in order to allow Rutenberg to be presented as an "entrepreneur" rather than part of the Zionist Organization.[3]