South Africa seeks to procure 2-3 GW of power capacity as soon as possible

South Africa’s Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) has launched a Risk Mitigation Power Purchase Programme, with the objective to procure between 2-3 GW of power generation capacity that can be grid-connected in the shortest time at the least possible cost. Projects under the scheme must be able to connect at intervals of between 3 to 6 months and 6 to 12 months, from issuance of the notice to proceed. Submissions are open until the end of January 2020. The plan intends to fill the current short-term supply, to alleviate the current electricity supply constraints. According to the Integrated Resource Plan until 2030, published in October 2030, there is a short-term supply gap of approximately 2 GW. This figure has recently been updated by South African power utility Eskom to about 3 GW.

In December 2019, Eskom has implemented Stage 4 load-shedding that aims at cutting up to 4 GW of power demand off the national power grid to avoid a collapse of the system. It has experienced unplanned breakdowns at its power plants (up to 14.2 GW unavailable). In addition, Eskom is facing incessant rains that affected its coal supply and flooded some power plants, while demand is about 600 MW higher than expected. The company is using diesel-fired power units, open-cycle gas turbines and pumped-storage power plants to supplement capacity.