As South Africa was plunged back into Stage 2 load shedding this week, Eskom has announced that it’s selected 18 companies to develop renewable energy projects.
The power utility will lease parts of its land in Mpumalanga to the bidders for this purpose.
Contracts can only be signed once the unnamed companies have obtained environmental impact assessment clearance, Eskom says.
The bids relate to 4,000 hectares of Eskom land, out of the 36,000 hectares available.
Successful companies will be announced once all the processes have been finalised, “hopefully by August”.
“The current projects will bring online a total of 1,800MW generation capacity, once connected.”
Motheo Khoaripe (in for Bruce Whitfield) gets comment from Chris Yelland, energy analyst and MD of EE Business Intelligence.
Yelland describes the move as “a huge step forward”.
Yelland clarifies that this electricity will be delivered to industries that need this power and “not to you and me”.
This will relieve Eskom of a burden it is currently unable to meet Yelland says.
“It is going to help you and me by reducing load shedding… by reducing demand on the Eskom system it means that we could be relieved of load shedding.”
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