Cape Town’s plan to leave Eskom behind
The City of Cape Town has issued a series of energy tenders to help mitigate load shedding and reduce its reliance on Eskom.
The city said that this is in line with the plan of adding independent power to the city’s grid.
The city hopes to procure power from existing generators, and will follow a two-pronged structure, allowing bidders to supplement dispatchable or reserve power with an optional self-dispatchable component – the latter being at a lower cost than the prevailing Eskom Megaflex Tariff.
The hope is to procure 300 MW of dispatchable or reserve power capacity and 200 MW of self-dispatchable power capacity.
The contract period is envisaged to be three years and is subject to the successful conclusion of a mandatory section 33 process.
The closing date for tender submissions is 8 April 2024.
“The most important current energy priority is ending load-shedding in Cape Town, with short-term plans to protect against the first four stages of Eskom load-shedding by 2026, adding 650MW of independent power to our mix within five years, and building up to the ultimate goal of access to additional independent power to put an end to Eskom load-shedding,” said the city’s Mayoral Committee Member for Energy, Beverley van Reenen.
The city’s short-term load shedding mitigation plans up to 2026 will be achieved through a mix of the Steenbras Hydro Plant (1 – 2 stages), 500MW of dispatchable energy (up to four stages from 06:00 – 22:00 daily where possible), and demand management programmes.
Demand management programmes that the city has introduced include curtailment for Large Power Users and Power Heroes, a voluntary programme for households and small commercial customers which allows remote switching of energy-intensive appliances such as geysers and pool pumps.
The city said that its power supply diversification initiatives include:
- DONE: Private Small-Scale Embedded Generation (up to 100 MW) mechanism – Residential and commercial customers are enabled to generate electricity for their own use and be credited for excess generation
- UNDERWAY: Embedded IPP renewable energy (200MW) – with the goal to diversify electricity suppliers for more cost-effective electricity
- UNDERWAY: Dispatchable IPP Program (up to 500MW) – a key load-shedding mitigation mechanism with 10-year power contracts for dispatchable power plants
- UNDERWAY: Wheeling (up to 350MW) – a City-enabled means of third parties selling electricity to each other using existing grid infrastructure
- UNDERWAY: City-owned SSEG (up to 20MW) from the Atlantis plant (7MW) and solar PV at City facilities (13MW)
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