Bloomberg and Dineo Matomela
SASOL planned to build a R1.8 billion “gas engine power plant” near its existing electricity generation facilities at Sasolburg, it said yesterday.
Building work was scheduled to begin this month and the project was expected to start producing electricity by the end of next year, the petrochemical firm announced.
Meanwhile, Mark Pickering, a director at Premium Power, yesterday called at a public hearing in Pretoria for the National Energy Regulator of SA to turn down the licence applications for the Peaker Project.
The Department of Energy is procuring two new open-cycle gas turbine (OCGT) power stations with a proposed 1 020 megawatt capacity as part of its peaking power projects. The Avon and Dedisa peaking power projects are being developed by the Suez-Inkanyezi consortium, which is led by GDF Suez of France.
Pickering argued that implementing the Peaker Project did not make sense. He said it would be too expensive, because it would impose unnecessary costs on power utility Eskom, increasing retail electricity costs.
He added that the rationale for the Peaker Project had fallen away and that the country faced power shortages due to inadequate investment in base load capacity.
“We appear to have sufficient peaking capacity and are now in danger of over-investing in peaking capacity.”
The Peaker Project arose from a cabinet decision in October 2004 that the then Department of Minerals and Energy should procure about 1 000MW of new OCGT peaking power capacity through a competitive independent power producer tendering process, to be commissioned by the end of 2008.