The South African Wind Energy Association (SAWEA) has welcomed the recent news announcing G7 Renewable Energies’ and EDF Renewables’ legal close on projects approved in South Africa’s Risk Mitigation Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (RMIPPPP). Together with their partners, the companies have signed 20-year Power Purchase Agreements with Eskom Holdings and Implementation Agreements with the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE), for their respective projects (30 August 2023).
The Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, Gwede Mantashe, announced these projects among the 11 preferred bidders in the 2 000 MW RMIPPPP, in March 2021. More than two years later, these two projects, together totalling 203 MW, are now making progress, expected to reach financial close and commence construction before the end of this year.
Both the projects incorporate wind, solar and storage technology on a utility scale, the first such hybrid projects in the South African government’s procurement programmes.
They will add new renewable power generation to the grid and, as hybrid projects, they will support the reliability and stability of the power generation system.
Sometimes referred to as co-location power projects, the hybrid plants will provide dispatchable electricity during peak hours, amplifying the contribution of renewable energy to overcoming the energy crisis and assisting in reducing the heavy negative impacts of loadshedding.
“This is a major benefit for the country,” says Niveshen Govender, CEO of SAWEA. “The new renewable energy hybrid systems will showcase the complementary nature of solar PV, which produces power during the day, and wind, which produces most of its power during the morning and evening peak times. Combined with battery storage, this means dispatchable power is available when it’s most needed.”
Located across the windy Cape regions, the two IPP projects are expected to come online from 2025 onwards, according to Minister Mantashe. Speaking at the signing, he said the total investment would attract R14.6 billion into the country’s economy and contribute a total of 3 966 job year opportunities in the construction and operation phases. Furthermore, over their 20-year lifetime, the projects aim to direct more than R610 million to local socio-economic development within their respective host communities.
The projects include the 128 MW Oya Energy Hybrid Facility, in Matjiesfontein, Western Cape; and the 75 MW Umoyilanga Energy project, to be constructed across two sites – at Avondale in the Northern Cape, and Dassiesridge in the Eastern Cape.
The RMIPPPP’s long journey began in early 2020 with the Ministerial Determination (February 2020), for the country to secure an additional 2 000 MW of power. This was subsequently gazetted on 7 July 2020, following NERSA’s due process of public consultation and concurrence. The RFP was released to market three years ago (24 August 2020), and the preferred bidders were announced in March the following year (18 March 2021).
“The announcements on legal close for the projects noted above, concludes the signing of five of the 11 nominated preferred bidder projects, together set to deliver 353 MW, and marks the first hybrid projects that include wind energy. The first three of the RMIPPP projects, for which agreements were signed in June last year, are currently in construction, and we look forward to these two newly signed projects reaching financial close and moving into construction, to bring much needed new generation capacity into the system in 2025,” Govender says.
For more information visit: www.sawea.org.za