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AfrElec BATTERY STORAGE AfrElec
Eskom picks Korean, Chinese manufacturers for $480mn battery storage project
SOUTH AFRICA
SOUTH Africa’s state power utility Eskom has selected preferred bidders for the design, supply and installation of its flagship Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) project, Engineering News-Record (ENR) reported on August 10.
The two contractors for the $480mn BESS project, South Korean electrical equipment manufacturer Hyosung Heavy Industries and Chinese power transmission equipment man- ufacturer Pinggao Group, will also carry out operations and maintenance of the project over five years.
Eskom’s multi-site project represents the first part of the 500 MW BESS initiative announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa last month, under the government’s measures to address South Africa’s long-running electricity crisis.
BESS project has been designed to utilize large-scale utility batteries with the capacity of 1,440MWh per day and a 60MW solar PV capacity to be implemented in two phases.
The first phase of the project will be commis- sioned by the end of June 2023 and will allow for 833MWh of storage capacity across eight of Eskom’s distribution substation sites, along with 2MW of solar PV capacity.
The second phase – to be commissioned from December 2024 – will allow for 616MWh of bat- tery storage at four of Eskom’s distribution sites
and a transmission site. The solar PV capacity willbe58MW.
Eskom is contributing 13% of the estimated $479.67mn overall project costs. The World Bank is providing $320mn for the first phase while the New Development Bank and Eskom will contribute $90mn and $12mn respectively.
The total financing by the New Development Bank (formerly BRICS Development Bank), would be $334mn that partly includes support for phase two of the BESS project, says ENR.
“Through the BESS project, Eskom aspires to diversify the existing generation energy mix by pursuing a low carbon future to reduce the impact on the environment,” said Velaphi Ntuli, general manager of Coal and Clean Technol- ogy at Eskom. The former general manager at Koeberg nuclear plant, Ntuli was suspended over “performance issues” in June 2021 but then redeployed by Eskom in his current position in October.
Eskom’s BESS project could be Africa’s first large-scale grid connected battery storage ini- tiative, writes ENR. Two other such projects in development on the continent including Sen- egal’s 60MW Taiba N’Diaye wind farm and 100MW Masen solar park in Morocco that are yet to be connected.
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 32 11•August•2022
