Cabinet likely to decide on IRP next week

• Update needed as present version considered outdated since it does not provide for procurement of sufficient new generation capacity

An update of SA’s energy plan, which serves as a guide for government procurement of new generation capacity, goes to the cabinet next week. Mineral resources & energy minister Gwede Mantashe said the revised Integrated Resources Plan (IRP) has already been submitted to the cabinet “a few times”. He expects to get “a final opinion” on the plan at the special cabinet meeting next Wednesday.

An update of SA’s energy plan, which serves as a guide for _government procurement of new generation capacity, goes to the cabinet next week.

Mineral resources and energy minister Gwede Mantashe said the revised Integrated Resources Plan (IRP) has already been submitted to cabinet “a few times”. It was one of the items on the agenda for the special cabinet meeting next Wednesday, when he expected to get “a final opinion” on the plan before it gets published for public scrutiny, said Mantashe.

“[We] tabled the new IRP to cabinet this week, but many ministers said they needed more time to go over it again — we don’t want to rush it,” he said.

The present version of the plan, the IRP 2019, is considered to be outdated since it does not provide for the procurement of sufficient new generation capacity to meet SA’s desperate need for more electricity. The IRP 2019 also makes assumptions about Eskom’s performance and the decommissioning of end-of-life coal-fired power stations that are now outdated.

The IRP 2019 provided for about 29,000MW of additional generation capacity to be added by 2030, including about 1,500MW from coal, 3,000MW from gas or diesel, and about 20,000MW from solar and wind.

This falls far short of the roughly 60GW of renewable generation capacity Eskom and the Presidential Climate Commission said would have to be added over the next decade to compensate for the shutdown of old coal plants and if SA is to meet its international climate commitments.

Since the release of IRP 2019, SA has revised its climatechange mitigation target range for the reduction of CO2 emissions under the global Paris Agreement from a range of 398 to 614 tonnes of CO2 to 350 to 420 tonnes by 2030. This more ambitious target draws into question plans in IRP 2019 to add additional coal-fired power to SA’s future energy mix. The IRP 2019 assumed Eskom’s generation fleet would be performing at an energy availability factor (EAF), which measures generation output as a share of total installed capacity, of about 75% from 2025 and beyond. But the power utility has been struggling this year to reach an EAF of more than 58%. Mantashe, who was speaking on Thursday at the announcement of the winning bidders for the first grid-scale energy storage programme in SA in Pretoria, said the department would over the next two weeks release new power procurement rounds for renewable energy, battery storage and gasto-power projects.

Apart from the first battery storage round, the state has not procured any new generation capacity from new bidding rounds this year.

Four preferred bidders were announced for bid window 1 of the Battery Energy Storage Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme, which was designed to procure 513MW from battery facilities to be located at five sites.

One of the winning bids is for a 103MW project called Mogobe at the Ferrum substation in the Northern Cape.

This R3.1bn project will be developed by Norwegian-headquartered renewable energy company Scatec.

The other three successful bids were awarded to the local

[WE] TABLED THE NEW IRP TO CABINET THIS WEEK, BUT MANY MINISTERS SAID THEY NEEDED MORE TIME TO GO OVER IT AGAIN

arm of French company EDF Renewables.

The three projects — Oasis Mookodi, Oasis Nieuwehoop and Oasis Aggeneis, all in the Northern Cape — will generate 77MW, 103MW and 77MW respectively.

No winning bidder was announced for the fifth site, the Garona substation, where the department of mineral resources and energy wants to procure a 153MW project.

Mantashe said that, based on the outcome of the benchmarking exercise, the department will enter into further “value for money negotiations” to appoint a preferred bidder for the Garona site.