The heads of South Africa’s wind and solar industry bodies urged Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe on Tuesday to publish, without delay, the Ministerial determinations required to unlock the procurement of much-needed electricity capacity in line with the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP 2019), promulgated in October.
Addressing members of the National Press Club in Pretoria, South African Wind Energy Association (SAWEA) CEO Ntombifuthi Ntuli and South African Photovoltaic Industry Association (SAPVIA) chairperson Wido Schnabel reported that their members had projects that could be implemented on an accelerated basis and in line with the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy’s (DMRE’s) recent call for proposals that could be grid-connected in the “shortest time and at the least possible cost”.
The call was made in a request for information (RFI), the deadline for which is January 31, for supply and demand options to close what is at least a 3 000 MW capacity gap, but which a recent Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) report calculates could be as large as 8 000 MW. The CSIR also warns that the country’s energy shortfall, which was above 1 350 GWh in 2019 (the country’s worst-ever load-shedding year), could grow to nearly 2 000 GWh this year and peak at about 4 600 GWh in 2022.
A full month as been allocated for the evaluation of the RFI responses, after which an emergency procurement process is expected to be initiated.
Addressing members of the National Press Club in Pretoria, South African Wind Energy Association (SAWEA) CEO Ntombifuthi Ntuli and South African Photovoltaic Industry Association (SAPVIA) chairperson Wido Schnabel reported that their members had projects that could be implemented on an accelerated basis and in line with the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy’s (DMRE’s) recent call for proposals that could be grid-connected in the “shortest time and at the least possible cost”.
The call was made in a request for information (RFI), the deadline for which is January 31, for supply and demand options to close what is at least a 3 000 MW capacity gap, but which a recent Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) report calculates could be as large as 8 000 MW. The CSIR also warns that the country’s energy shortfall, which was above 1 350 GWh in 2019 (the country’s worst-ever load-shedding year), could grow to nearly 2 000 GWh this year and peak at about 4 600 GWh in 2022.
A full month as been allocated for the evaluation of the RFI responses, after which an emergency procurement process is expected to be initiated.
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SAWEA and SAPVIA believe that the RFI process should not hold back the implementation of the IRP 2019, however, and that the fifth bidding round of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP) should be launched in parallel, given both the crisis and that previous bidding rounds have typically required between 18 and 24 months to complete.
Lead times could be compressed in the next bidding round, owing to the fact that some 90 projects had already been identified in 2015 under the ironically named ‘expedited round’ – that round eventually expired after years of delay, precipitated by Eskom’s refusals to enter into new power purchase agreements (PPAs) with independent power producers (IPPs).
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Lead times could be compressed in the next bidding round, owing to the fact that some 90 projects had already been identified in 2015 under the ironically named ‘expedited round’ – that round eventually expired after years of delay, precipitated by Eskom’s refusals to enter into new power purchase agreements (PPAs) with independent power producers (IPPs).
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