DMRE has also revealed that special purpose vehicle (SPV) AGV Projects is the fifth preferred bidder status winner from the first BESIPPPP bid window, following awards to Norway’s Scatec for one and a consortium of Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP), utility EDF and IPP Mulilo for the other three.

AGV Projects will build a 153MW BESS, Red Sands, at Eskom’s Garona substation for a total cost of ZAR6.43 billion (US$341 million), bringing the total round one projects to 513MW/2,052MWh.

The BESIPPPP projects will provide Eskom with capacity, energy and frequency control via ancillary services Instantaneous Reserves, Regulating Reserves, Ten Reserves and Supplemental Reserves, under 15-year power purchase agreements (PPAs).

Eskom has in general struggled to prevent frequent and widespread load shedding and power outages and plans to use BESS to increase resiliency on the grid.

DMRE has also extended the bid submission deadline for the second bid window of BESIPPPP, from 30 April 2024 to 6 June 2024, and done the same for the seventh bid window of the separate Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP). BESIPPPP round two will procure 615MW/2,460MWh.

The government of South Africa uses REIPPPP to procure large-scale solar and wind capacity, and has been covered extensively by our sister site PV Tech, and its latest bid submission deadline has been pushed to 30 May 2024.

It is also procuring BESS through another scheme, the Risk Mitigation IPP Procurement Program (RMIPPPP) for generation-plus-BESS projects, with winning parties including Scatec and Saudi-based ACWA Power.

The launch of BESIPPPP last year and its 70% round-trip efficiency (RTE) provoked some lively debate around whether flow batteries would be able to compete with lithium-ion for projects (Premium access), though winning projects so far appear to have utilised lithium-ion.