Many new private power plants are set to provide electricity to South Africa’s grid over the next few years.
These include wind, solar, gas, and biomass power stations, all of which either form part of the Department of Energy’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producers (REIPP) Procurement Programme or Risk Mitigation IPP Procurement Programme.
These power stations come at a time when state power utility Eskom has struggled to meet energy demand in South Africa with its own generating capacity.
The power utility has been crippled by years of corruption and maladministration, which has led to delays in the construction of its new coal-fired power plants and a backlog in the maintenance of existing power stations.
The latter have resulted in its generating units tripping often or being forced into shutdown. This has forced Eskom to implement severe load-shedding to prevent a national blackout.
Load-shedding is not only an inconvenience to South Africans, but has caused damage to South Africa’s economy.
The situation could have been even worse had it not been for addition of capacity provided by renewable energy IPPs over the last year.
Energy minister Gwede Mantashe recently acknowledged the role played by these IPPs since Eskom was allowed to procure electricity from them in 2020.
In his latest budget vote speech, Mantahse said that around 1,200MW of capacity was added to the grid from the latest bidding window of the REIPP procurement programme, and that another 1,000MW was expected to be added by the end of 2021.
Examples of new stations which have been added to the grid include the 123MW Golden Valley Wind Farm in the Eastern Cape, which will provide more than 477GWh of renewable electricity each year. This is equivalent to the energy needs of 120,000 households.
Others which were also added to Eskom’s grid are the 33MW Excelsior Wind Energy Facility in the Western Cape, the 46 MW Aggeneys and 86MW Konkoonsies II solar plants, and the Kruisvallei small hydro power plant in Bethlehem in the Free State.
The department’s IPP Projects website provides a list of IPP facilities which are still being constructed and due to come online before the end of 2021.
A quick analysis of these showed that wind energy will account for a significant part of new renewable generation, with around 807MW more to be added this year.
Notable projects include the 282MW Karusa and Soetwater Wind Farms near Sutherland in the Northern Cape.
Another notable power stations is the R11.6-billion Redstone concentrated solar power (CSP) plant near Postmasburg, which will provide 200,000 households by 2024.
Meanwhile, the Ngodwana Energy Project in Mpumalanga will use biomass from the Sappi Ngodwana Pulp and Paper Millto provide 25MW of electricity.
These IPPs forms part of government’s broader integrated resource plan, which will see South Africa’s grid increase its reliance on renewable energy to make up around a third of capacity by 2030.
Under the plan, Eskom will be allowed to procure around 12,000MW of electricity from IPPs, including:
6,800 megawatt from renewable (wind and solar) sources.
3,000 megawatt from gas sources.
1,500 megawatt from coal sources.
513 megawatt from storage.
Government has also announced a Risk Mitigation IPP Programme, which will allow Eskom to source 1,845MW of risk mitigation capacity to stave off load-shedding.
According to its list of preferred bidders for the programme, the vast majority of this generation capacity – 1,220MW – will be sourced from powerships generating electricity by burning liquefied natural gas (LNG).
These ships will be anchored and connected to the grid at harbours in Coega, Richard’s Bay, and Saldanha Bay.
The other five approved bidders will use various hybrid solutions comprising different combinations of solar, wind, gas, and battery storage.
The table below shows all of the new power plants which are expected to be added to Eskom’s grid in the next two to three years, arranged by generation output capacity.
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