Eskom

Across Africa, rooftop solar is stepping in to fill the void as fears of non-payment and inflation-reduced donor funding dampen enthusiasm for big solar. Commercial and industrial (C&I) arrays are leading the charge, driving consolidation in markets overstocked with startup and mid-size installers.

The South African authorities awarded project agreements to two wind-solar-storage hybrid projects that were selected in a 2 GW tech-neutral tender held under the Risk Mitigation Independent Power Producers Procurement Programme (RMIPPPP) in 2021.

Extensive load-shedding, lack of grid capacity, failing coal-fired power stations, lack of progress in clean power procurement, and even vandalism have prompted various South African government departments to take renewables generation into their own hands, seemingly without any overarching plan, as Bryan Groenendaal reports.

South African utility Eskom aims to develop 35 MW/140 MWh of battery storage capacity at its substations in Eastern Cape province. The tender will also accept bids for a 1.5 MW/6 MWh storage system, plus 2.04 MW of solar PV at another substation. Eskom started building the country’s first battery energy storage system (BESS) last week.

The city authority wants a developer to construct a 7 MW solar project for it as part of a push to widen its sources of electricity, and says clean energy will be cheaper than – largely coal-fired – grid power from Eskom.

South African utility Eskom has selected contractors for 343 MW of battery storage projects to be deployed in remote locations with limited access to distribution networks, but in proximity to large-scale renewables.

President Ramaphosa’s speech this week included momentous plans for new solar and battery procurement as well as efforts to cut licensing and permitting delays as national utility Eskom scrambles to reduce the scale of black-outs.

The land will be available for lease in a competitive bidding process. Selected developers will be offered a 20-year contract and the possibility of deploying solar parks with a capacity of up to 100 MW. Eskom says the move will help alleviate South Africa’s energy crisis.

The weighted average cost of the electricity to be generated by the latest 975 MW fleet of solar projects procured by a national tender program has fallen more than 50% from the level recorded in the last such exercise, which was abandoned six years ago.

In what is being described by its developer as a national first, a 10 MW solar plant in the Northern Cape will generate power for the local business of Amazon Web Services, with the solar electricity to be delivered via the grid operated by national utility Eskom.