Eskom

Norwegian PV developer Scatec ASA has switched on a hybrid solar and battery storage facility in the Northern Cape province of South Africa.

Utility Eskom is seeking proposals to build a 75 MW solar plant at the Lethabo Power Station in South Africa’s Free State province.

The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) of South Africa has opened the third bid window for its Battery Energy Storage IPP Procurement Programme (BESIPPPP), which is procuring a total of 1,744 MW of four-hour battery storage systems. It has also announced the final winner from the first window.

With the size of utility scale solar projects in the nation having ballooned, the lessons learned from South Africa’s first big solar field continue to help developers roll out PV as a key energy source.

South Africa’s public utility, Eskom, has switched on a 20 MW/100 MWh Hex battery energy storage system (BESS) in Worcester, Western Cape province, to mitigate the challenge of load shedding.

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.