The South African Government has launched a bidding round for more than 7.6GW of new power generation in the country to address power outages, Reuters has reported.
Three requests for proposals (RFPs) were issued by South Africa’s Department of Mineral Resources and Energy for the independent power producers.
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The government aims to address the power deficit via renewable energy, natural gas and battery storage projects.
It is targeting 5GW from renewable energy, 2GW of energy via gas and 615MW from battery storage.
Before the issue of the RFPs, the government launched six renewable energy bidding rounds primarily focused on clean energy generation from wind and solar assets, and one battery storage round.
An emergency “risk-mitigation” round was also introduced for gas-fired power.
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By GlobalDataSouth Africa Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe stated in a written response to the lawmakers that 90 clean energy projects have been completed in the country and already supply more than 6.1GW capacity to the power grid.
Nine further projects with more than 1GW of capacity are currently in the development phase.
For more than a decade, South Africa has been procuring electricity from private developers to supplement failing coal-fired power plants owned by state utility Eskom.
In mid-December 2023, South Africa unveiled plans to launch a bidding process to commission 2.5GW of new nuclear energy by March 2024.
“We are excited about the prospects and we are confident about our ability to ensure that within a reasonable period of time we are able [to announce] preferred bidders,” South Africa’s Electricity Minister, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, told reporters at a news conference.
He added that South Africa, which is home to Africa’s only operational nuclear plant, the Koeberg substation, will build new nuclear reactors at a scale that the country can afford.
