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SAWEA to study ways to improve grid access

for wind energy producers

SOUTH AFRICA SOUTH African Wind Energy Association to 36 months are sidelined, despite an intensify-
(SAWEA) has offered to finance a study to deter- ing power shortage in the country, Engineering
mine if there is potential for more grid capacity News wrote on January 18.
for wind power in the country. “We believe that there is space for both public
SAWEA made the offer after a recent pro- and private procurement and that the grid-ac-
curement round failed to appoint any of the 23 cess rules should not discriminate in favour of
wind projects that participated in the round as a one over the other,” Govender said. “However,
preferred bidder. we need the rules to be fair and transparent and
In December 2022, the government there also needs to be regular communication
appointed only six utility-scale solar photovol- when circumstances are changing.”
taic (PV) projects, with a combined capacity Eskom is failing to provide enough electricity
of 860MW, as preferred bidders, following Bid due to frequent breakdowns of its largely coal-
Window Six (BW6) of the Renewable Energy fired facilities as well as theft and vandalism of
Independent Power Producer Procurement infrastructure. As a result, it is cutting off sup-
Programme (REIPPPP). plies for up to 10 hours daily through scheduled Wind technology
The failure to appoint any wind projects, outages (load shedding).
Engineering News reported, was attributed to Meanwhile, SAWEA has announced a new is uniquely
the unavailability of grid capacity in the Eastern, board chaired by Dhesen Moodley who built
Northern and Western Cape provinces, where all a career in the finance and energy sectors and positioned to
23 projects are located. has a history in developing, financing and man-
However, SAWEA chief Niveshen Govender aging independent power projects with expo- support energy
said members want an independent assessment sure to solar PV, CSP, coal, gas and mini-hydro security
of the grid constraints in the region to assess assets. He is leading a team that is managing a
whether there are technical solutions available to portfolio of six solar and two wind assets in
immediately unlock additional capacity, or com- which London-based IPP, Globeleq is a majority
mercially viable ways to implement grid sharing. shareholder.
Eskom, the state power utility in Africa’s most “Wind technology,” Moodley said in a
developed economy, will undertake the study. SAWEA release on Tuesday (January 31), “is
Should solutions emerge, the SAWEA could uniquely positioned to support energy security
then request the Independent Power Producers as it provides cost-competitive generation dur-
(IPP) Office to consider launching an “expedited ing the evening peak demand hours and com-
bid window”, through which wind projects ham- plements the growing fleet of utility, commercial
pered by grid constraints could be able to rebid. and residential solar PV. It’s time to roll up our
Projects that could be delivering about sleeves and chip away at load shedding, as a
10TWh of electricity yearly within the next 24 national initiative.”™

P12 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 06 08•February•2023