South African utility Eskom launches tender for 80 MW/320 MWh of storage

The South African national power company is planning to deploy large scale energy storage capacity at the Skaapvlei substation. The facility will help manage the intermittent energy generated by a 100 MW Eskom wind farm.

August 3, 2020 Emiliano Bellini

The planned facility is being tendered after publication of the nation’s new Integrated Resource Plan.

Image: barendlotter/Pixabay

South African utility Eskom has launched a tender for the deployment of 80 MW/ 320 MWh of energy storage capacity at its Skaapvlei substation, in the Western Cape region. The facility will help manage intermittent power generated by a 100 MW Eskom wind farm nearby.

The selected developer will design, build and operate the storage facility and provide operations and maintenance services for five years. The deadline to submit project proposals is September 11.

The tender for the facility comes in the wake of publication of South Africa’s new Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), which aims for up to 6 GW of new large scale solar by 2030, as well as up to 6 GW of smaller, distributed-generation capacity. Other tenders issued since the new IRP was made public include one in October for a small solar project, and an expression of interest launched in April for “decommissioned power station repurposing” which included the option of renewables capacity.

Eskom is working on unbundling its energy monopoly as it suffers frequent blackouts, in part due to maintenance issues at its aging coal-fired power plants.

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