South Africa's national power utility Eskom has launched a cross-border standard offer programme (CBSOP), seeking to procure 1,000 MW of additional electricity imports from neighbouring countries, in an attempt to reduce power shortages and loadshedding.
Under this programme, Eskom would sign up short-term electricity purchases from power companies (both utilities and independent power producers (IPPs)) at an established price calculated at the avoided cost of Eskom’s own generation (including long-term energy purchases from local IPPs). The tariff would be adjusted each year based on the regulatory-approved cost recovery mechanism and would cover the variable cost of local generation. For the third quarter of 2023 and the first quarter of 2024, defined as the low season of the financial year 2024 (1 April 2023-31 March 2024), the standard price will be ZAR849.08/MWh (US$44/MWh), the peak price ZAR1,510.14/MWh (US$78/MWh) and the off-peak price ZAR606.48/MWh (US$32/MWh).
Eskom had launched a local standard offer in September 2022 and signed up to 1,100 MW with domestic companies with surplus electricity available to sell into the loadshedding-afflicted grid.