South Africa Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson on Monday named the two independent power producers that are the preferred bidders to supply coal-based energy to the country, saying together they will add 863 megawatt of power to the grid from 2021.
“Thabametsi and Khanyisa will collectively add 863.3 MW to the country’s grid in the next five years, with Khanyisa set to begin commercial operation in December 2020, followed closely by Thabemetsi in March 2021,” Joemat-Pettersson told a media briefing in Cape Town.
She said the two bidders had backing from the Development Bank of South Africa, commercial local banks and investors in Korea, Japan and Saudi Arabia.
Their bids came in at a price point of respectively 80 cents and 79 cents per kilowatt-hour, and would incur “significant penalties” for not meeting deadlines for scheduled commercial operation, she added.
Joemat-Pettersson said the department and the government as a whole remained committed to bringing on line private sector players, with an emphasis on clean energy alternatives, despite Eskom’s decision in July that it would not sign on more independent power producers beyond those already agreed as it had a power surplus.
“There is no dispute between Eskom and the department of energy or the country,” she said.
“But Eskom’s situation has changed and I have to take those changes into account.”
Joemat-Pettersson said Eskom’s position would feed into the updated integrated resource plan, which would come before Cabinet in the next fortnight.
This week Wednesday, the integrated energy plan and the integrated resource plan… will be submitted to Cabinet committee and the week after that I will take it to Cabinet,” she said, adding that this should however not be taken to mean that it would be instantly approved.
The minister clarified that approval of the IRP was not a prerequisite for government issuing a request for proposals (RFP) for its contested nuclear build programme.
This, as well as the IPP programme will could proceed in terms of the 2010 blueprint until the new plan had been finalised, she told the African News Agency (ANA).
There was come confusion over this when Joemat-Pettersson failed to issue an RFP at the end of September 30, as she had repeatedly said she would, after Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor said a new IRP needed to be on the table first.
Indications from Cabinet were that the delay is rather linked to government mulling making Eskom, instead of the department of energy, the lead agent with responsibility for the initial phases of the nuclear project.
South Africa Today – South Africa News
