On 8 December 2022 Eskom and Hyosung Heavy Industries, one of the appointed service providers for the Eskom Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) project, marked the beginning of construction of the first energy storage facility under the flagship BESS project. The sod-turning ceremony was held at the Elandskop BESS site, located in the Msunduzi and Impendle Local Municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal.
Breaking ground at the Elandskop BESS site in KwaZulu-Natal.
Construction will take between seven and twelve months and the batteries on the site will be charged from the main grid via Eskom’s Elandskop substation. The facility will have a capacity of 8 MW, equivalent to 32 MWh of distributed electricity, enough to power a town such as Howick for four hours. One of the benefits of the BESS is that it will boost the network during peak hours, thus reducing the strain on the network over those hours.
“The start of construction on the Elandskop BESS is a positive development in our efforts to alleviate the pressure on the national electricity grid,” said Eskom Group Chief Executive, André de Ruyter, speaking at the event. “This is a direct response to the urgent need to address South Africa’s long-running electricity crisis by adding more generation capacity to the grid, and also to strengthen the grid by adding more storage and transforming capacity.”
Elandskop is part of Phase 1 of Eskom’s BESS project, which includes the installation of about 199 MW of additional capacity, providing 833 MWh of distributed battery storage plants at eight Eskom Distribution substation sites around the country. This phase also includes about 2 MW of solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity.
The cost of the project will be about R11 billion and is being funded through concessional loans from the World Bank, African Development Bank and the New Development Bank. The procurement process for the project has been set out by funders and Eskom is in compliance with that and its own internal governance.
Phase 2 of the project will include the installation of a further 144 MW of storage capacity, equivalent to 616 MWh at four Eskom Distribution sites and one Transmission site. The solar PV capacity in this phase will be 58 MW.
The BESS project will use large-scale utility batteries with the capacity of 1 440 MWh per day and a 60 MW PV capacity. It will be one of the largest BESS projects to be developed and implemented in South Africa.
Velaphi Ntuli, Eskom’s General Manager: Distribution, Operations Enablement, said, “Eskom has identified distributed storage as an additional alternative to support renewable energy expansion in South Africa and we have taken the necessary steps to ensure the successful implementation of the BESS project.”
All Phase 1 sites are planned to be commissioned by 30 June 2023 and Phase 2 by December 2024.
For more information visit: www.eskom.co.za