Renewable Energy Grid Survey points to 66 GW development pipeline in South Africa

A new survey of South Africa’s renewable-energy development pipeline, and its potential implications  for grid planning and investment, reveals that there is currently a 66 GW pipeline of wind and solar projects in South Africa and that a number of these projects are envisaged to be coupled with battery storage. The pipeline also includes some 2 GW of gas-to-power. The ‘Renewable Energy Grid Survey’, which has been compiled by Eskom in collaboration with the South African Wind Energy Association (SAWEA) and the South African Photovoltaic Industry Association (SAPVIA) indicates that about 18.3 GW is at an advanced stage of development.
/by

No loadshedding during the day until further notice, with Stage 3 every evening

Loadshedding will be suspended from midnight to 16:00 every day until further notice, with Stage 3 implemented over the evening peak, due to “further improvement on the available generation capacity”.    The Stage 3 load shedding will last from 16:00 until midnight. 
/by

Private offtake market adds new impetus to black energy group’s pioneering IPP journey

The journey by South Africa’s Pele Energy Group (PEG) from fledgling energy investor to that of a pioneering black-owned and -managed independent power producer (IPP) is receiving fresh impetus from an unexpected source: the robust private-offtake market that has been stimulated by a recent reform allowing for distributed generation projects of any size to proceed without a licence. MD Gqi Raoleka reports that the company has steadily expanded its portfolio from 800 MW in 2016 – when Engineering News ran a feature on how the five young black professionals who founded PEG had aspirations to become a fully-fledged IPP – to approximately 2 000 MW currently.
/by