Northern Cape premier Zamani Saul says work is progressing at the Redstone Concentrated Solar Power Project in Postmasburg, which is expected to bring additional power to the country’s energy network.<\/p>\n
In his state of the province address on Thursday (24 February), Saul said the project is one of the largest capital investment projects in the Northern Cape.<\/p>\n
“The project comprises 100 Megawatts of Concentrated Solar Power (CSP). The plant will be constructed over a period of 31 months, achieving full commercial operation by the end of October 2023,” he said.<\/p>\n
“As at the end of January 2022, the project had employed 636 direct jobs on site. Of these employees, 91% are South Africans. Further to this, 339 are from the Tsantsabane and Kgatelopele municipalities. Pleasing is the fact that more than 45% of employees are young people under the age of 35 and 15% of all employees are women in various job disciplines.<\/p>\n
The project is expected to peak close to 1,800 employees by the end of this year, said Saul.<\/p>\n
What to expect<\/strong><\/p>\n The project will see the construction and operation of a concentrating solar thermal power (CSP) plant in the Hay District, around 30 km from Postmasburg in the Northern Cape.<\/p>\n A CSP tower plant generates solar power using mirrors, known as heliostats, to concentrate a large area of sunlight onto a small area known as the receiver. Electricity is then generated when the concentrated light is converted to solar thermal energy.<\/p>\n It will be capable of producing approximately 480 gigawatt-hours (GWh) net of renewable energy annually, with a nominal net generating capacity of approximately 100 megawatts (MW).<\/p>\n The Project\u2019s Sponsors are ACWA Power and SolarReserve. ACWA Power is a developer, investor, co-owner and operator of a portfolio of power generation and desalinated water production plants with operations in 12 countries in the Middle East and North Africa, Southern Africa and South-East Asia regions.<\/p>\n Absa, which is involved in the funding and development of the project, has previously said<\/a> <\/strong>that the Redstone CSP Project will have 12 hours of full-load energy storage.<\/p>\n This will enable the power plant to reliably deliver a stable electricity supply to more than 200,000 South African homes during peak demand periods, even after the sun has set.<\/p>\n
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