The indication by State-owned utility Eskom that virtual wheeling is not yet available to licensed electricity traders is “surprising and disappointing”, EE Business Intelligence MD Chris Yelland tells Engineering News. The company held a webinar about virtual wheeling on June 5, during which Eskom Distribution strategy development senior manager Mutenda Tshipala made this announcement.
South Africa’s Independent Power Producer Office (IPPO) has confirmed that it is undertaking a comprehensive review of the country’s public procurement framework for independent power producers (IPPs), which has hitherto been dominated by renewable energy. The model was once lauded internationally but is currently facing significant headwinds, with analysis by the University of Cape Town’s (UCT’s) Power Futures Lab showing that of the 14 800 MW tendered since 2020, only 7 343 MW has been awarded, while less than 20% has reached financial close.
Engineering News editor Terence Creamer discusses the OECD’s findings on electricity reform in South Africa, as published in its latest survey of the South Africa economy.
The City of Cape Town’s Atlantis solar PV plant has, to date, seen the installation of around 2 400 solar panels out of the planned 12 850 panels as part of this R200-million renewable-energy project. The plant, with an initial capacity of 7 MW, will be connected to the local grid by the end of the year.
Global energy investment is set to increase to a record $3.3-trillion this year, despite headwinds from elevated geopolitical tensions and economic uncertainty, according to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA’s) latest yearly ‘World Energy Investment’ report. The report, which provides key insights on the latest investment trends across the global energy landscape, finds that investment in clean energy technologies, such as renewables, nuclear, grids, storage, low-emissions fuels, efficiency and electrification, is on course to hit $2.2-trillion this year.
Industrial Gas Users Association South Africa (IGUA-SA) CEO Jaco Human has called for the urgent finalisation of a fiscal guarantees framework to help progress, to a “transactional level”, the infrastructure required to mitigate an impending gas supply crisis. In a presentation to the Portfolio Committee on Electricity and Energy, Human welcomed recent shifts in government thinking regarding the future role of gas, including using gas-to-power (GtP) projects to anchor demand for the importation of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Frontier economies, mostly located in Africa, would need to spend one-third of their GDP by 2030 to achieve renewable power generation goals under the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) scenario, compared with about 11% of GDP for other emerging markets and 4% for G7 economies, credit rating agency S&P Global president Yann Le Pallec has pointed out. “We need to address the transition and adaptation financing gap in low-income countries, which, in our view, is a major issue. Absent a strong global mobilisation from all stakeholders, the financing gap will continue to grow,” he said on June 4 at the 2025 S&P Global Ratings’ South Africa Conference, in Johannesburg.
While defending the controversial launch of a R100-billion Transformation Fund, Trade, Industry and Competition Deputy Minister Zuko Godlimpi has also urged lawmakers not to view the proposed instrument as a “silver bullet” for all the prevailing problems associated with the implemention of broad-based black economic empowerment (BBBEE) policies. Much of the criticism of the fund has hitherto centred on the potential for creating a new avenue for corruption by establishing a State-led fund, as well as whether an aggregated fund would prove more effective than the individual efforts of private companies seeking BBBEE credit for their enterprise supplier development (ESD) investments.
Electricity trader Discovery Green has signed a power purchase agreement with Red Rocket that unlocks the second phase of the independent power producer’s (IPP’s) 150 MW Overberg Wind Farm, located 12 km west of Swellendam in the Western Cape. The offtake agreement is the first to be concluded by Discovery Green, which is part of the larger JSE-listed Discovery Group.
Independent power producers (IPPs) Mulilo and Scatec have been named as preferred bidders to develop 616 MW/2 464 MWh of new battery storage capacity at a cost of R9.5-billion across five substation sites in the Free State province. Electricity and Energy Minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa made the announcement following the conclusion of the third bid window of South Africa’s Battery Energy Storage Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme, which was launched on March 28 last year.
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