ending load-shedding and ensuring energy security for the country,” Eskom chief executive André de Ruyter said in a statement on 14 September. The utility added that it was “pleased to note” progress with the RMPPP, “which it hopes will start being connected to the national grid by December 2021”. The utility has been calling for procurement of at least 3GW and up to 5GW new capacity to ease supply constraints.

Tender process

A bidders’ conference for the RMPPP will take place on 25 September and there are likely to be a number of questions. One panellist at AIX said the tender was “incredibly complicated” because of the need to cater for all technologies. However, the panellist added that it would be “a valuable and very interesting test” of a technology-agnostic procurement process, something which many in the industry have been calling for for some time.The tender requires bidders to provide dispatchable power with set ramp rates and with dispatch levels set the day before. According to the panellist, this will give hybrid renewable solutions the opportunity to compete on economics with more established technologies.

However, there is considerable concern over the procurement timeline.“Timing is a challenge if not an impossibility and our hope is that more realistic timelines, which will enable more cost-effective and sustainable solutions, would be seriously considered. Otherwise we may be stuck with short-term and expensive‘knee-jerk’ solutions.There is a fine line between knee- jerk reactions and sustainable fast-track solutions which we hope will be meaningfully reviewed,” one bidder told African Energy.
“Whilst the request for proposals is not without its warts and bumps, we believe that the technology- and location-agnostic approach with a clear view on when electrons are required is a forward-thinking systems approach and pushes all key stakeholders to step out of their comfort zone and become

more innovative in their approaches. If successful, this approach in our view could really change the way future energy is viewed and procured in South Africa.”

A speaker at AIX Gas on 15 September also felt that the timeline was impossible and was concerned about penalty clauses for not meeting timelines which include forfeiting bid bonds, something which has not been included in IPP procurement programmes before and increases the risks for investors at a time when many are risk averse. He said that some investors had started to walk away, particularly given the difficulty of putting together complex projects quickly when unable to travel to the country. The speaker said that something would have to give or the government would face public embarrassment.

Renewable power procured through the fifth window of the renewable energy IPP procurement programme (REIPPP) will be the next generation capacity to follow the RMPPP. However, the power is unlikely to be online before the critical winter of 2022, when load-shedding could reach dramatic levels without more generation capacity (AE 411/4).Winter 2021 is likely to be bad as well but may be mitigated slightly by low growth after Covid.

While the government is keen to expedite procurement programmes, the IPP Office, which is responsible for managing them, has previously predicted that REIPPP5 would not be finalised until end-2021, after which the plants will still need to be built.

In a statement on 11 September, the Political Task Team on Eskom said it had received a report from the DMRE which said the fifth round “process will be completed in December 2020”, without clarifying what this meant. South Africa’s Engineering News reported on 14 September that the DMRE had said procurement of the 11,813MW would be gazetted before 25 September. The Political Task Team also reported that good progress had been made on restructuring Eskom into three separate entities for generation, transmission and distribution. However, the January-March timeline for appointing an interim board and chief executive for the successor transmission entity set out in the Roadmap for Eskom last year has been missed.

- Enovathemes