After a farcical amount of toing and froing, the 27 outstanding renewable PPAs under the country’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP) have today been signed.
Overall, the PPAs represent 2.3 GW of generation capacity, which is expected to be added to the grid over the next five years, 58,000 new jobs, and an investment of R56 billion (around US$4.7 billion), said South African Energy Minister, Jeff Radebe.
The Northern Cape will see the majority of the investment, with 15 wind, solar PV and CSP projects planned. A further four PV projects will be installed in the North West Province. A total of 12 PPAs are for solar PV projects totaling 813 MW.
“The localisation potential of these 27 new projects is substantial. Our estimate is that for the solar PV projects, around 2.8 million solar PV modules would be procured, 600 inverters and 385 transformers,” said Radebe in a speech marking the signing.
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He added, “South African manufacturers stand to benefit from this huge demand given the local content commitments made by the IPPs.”
In a nod to the current woes of national utility, Eskom, which is the only entity in the country entitled to buy renewable energy power under the REIPPPP scheme, Radebe said that energy regulator Nersa will work with Eskom’s new leadership to address the challenges currently facing the utility.
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It is about time South Africa stopped faffing about and got on with installing renewable energy.
Coal mining and coal fired power plants costs $2billion each year in additional health costs and prematurely kills over 2000 citizens annually.
These findings were presented by a UK-based air quality and health expert to the Department of Environmental Affairs and the Public Health Association of South Africa, organized by groundWork as part of their collaboration with Health Care Without Harm on the Healthy Energy Initiative