Nompumelelo Magwaza and Sapa
POWER licences had been approved for the successful renewable energy bidders, the National Energy Regulator of SA (Nersa) said yesterday.
Nersa said all 28 preferred bidders in the first round met the criteria, which included technical, financial, economic, regulatory and legal standards.
Last month, Energy Minister Dipuo Peters said it was important that energy sources were affordable because the procured power would be sold to Eskom, which had been tasked by President Jacob Zuma to make electricity affordable.
Out of 53 bidders, 28 were given the green light by Peters in December last year. Eighteen of these projects included the use of solar photovoltaic technology which would produce 631.53 megawatts, eight would use onshore wind projects providing 633.99MW and two were based on concentrated solar power, generating 150MW. The Department of Energy had set a target of 3 725MW of energy to be sourced from independent power producers by 2016.
For the second window period, only 19 out of the 79 projects presented were selected as preferred bidders and price accounted for 70 percent of the assessment score.
Eskom secured a R5 billion loan from the World Bank and the African Development Bank to establish a 100MW wind power plant and a 100MW solar power project.
But the parastatal warned yesterday that electricity demand had increased as cold weather set in. This was particularly noticeable during the peak hours of 5pm to 9pm.
“Eskom has made planned maintenance of its power stations a priority,” it said.
Eskom said it had been making significant progress with its programme of preventative maintenance to help stabilise the power grid.
According to the bulletin, total demand last night was forecast to reach 34 274MW.
Eskom had 36 847 MW of capacity available, including from open cycle gas turbines.
Current planned maintenance accounted for a further 3 365MW while unplanned outages affected 2 990MW.
On Wednesday, peak demand of 33 698MW was met with an available capacity of 36 703 MW. Peak demand for the weekend was forecast to reach 32 289MW today, 31 529MW tomorrow and 32 176MW on Sunday.
“We urge all South Africans to partner with us to keep the lights off and save 10 percent of their electricity usage.”
This would make it easier to manage the power system and would enable Eskom to carry out planned maintenance.