France-headquartered IPP and utility EDF has secured financial close for the second and third of a three-project BESS portfolio in South Africa, projects that won long-term contracts under the country’s BESIPPPP scheme.
The company can now proceed with construction on the 77MW/308MWh Oasis Aggeneis and 103MW/412MWh Oasis Nieuwehoop battery energy storage system (BESS) projects, having already closed on the 77MW/308MWh Oasis Mookodi BESS in October.
The three projects, a total of 257MW/1,028MWh, are all in the Northern Cape Supply Area and will provide energy and power services to grid operator Eskom after winning 15-year contracts in the Battery Energy Storage Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (BESIPPPP) around a year ago.
Eskom has struggled to maintain grid reliability and stability leading to frequent and widespread blackouts, and the BESS will help it to shore up the system’s stability. The BESIPPP projects will provide capacity, energy and frequency control and ancillary services, including Instantaneous Reserves, Regulating Reserves, Ten Reserves and Supplemental Reserves.
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EDF’s projects are expected to come online in the next 24 months and are being built via a consortium led by EDF and local independent power producer (IPP) Mulilo, with Pele Energy Group and Gibb-Crede as additional equity investors. Each project includes a 5% ownership interest for local communities through a Community Trust.
The consortium has raised seven billion Rand (US$387 million dollars) in debt from Standard Bank of South Africa and ABSA to fund the projects. The two 77MW projects were developed by ABO Energy, and sold to the consortium concurrently with the financial close announcement.
EDF is also deploying renewables and storage in South Africa via other schemes, including a hybrid wind, solar and storage project it reached financial close one year ago, which also has a power purchase agreement (PPA) with Eskom, and also in Northern Cape.
BESIPPPP window one secured 513MW/2,052MWh, with IPPs Scatec and Globeleq winning the other projects. The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE), which is handling the BESIPPPP procurement, has launched the second and third windows of the program, hoping to procure an additional approximate 615MW/2,460MWh via each window.
