The government of South Africa has revealed the preferred bidders in the third window of its Battery Energy Storage Independent Power Procurement Programme (BESIPPPP), with IPPs Mulilo and Scatec winning the projects.
The preferred bidders for the five projects totalling 616MW of capacity were revealed today (30 May) in a speech by Minister of Electricity and Energy Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, of the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy.
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A total of 33 bids for the five battery energy storage system (BESS) projects at transmission system operator (TSO) Eskom substations were received, of which four bids from Mulilo and one from Scatec were successful.
Mulilo, which is majority owned by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP), is preferred bidder for the Merapi, Theseas, Harvard and Everest projects while Norwegian firm Scatec won the Leander project. All projects are in the Free State Province.
The five BESS projects, of 123MW or 124MW each with a 4-hour duration, will require a total investment of ZAR 9.5 billion (US$531 million), Ramokgopa said.
‘Tender speaks to the maturity of South African players’
Although Mulilo is backed by a European investor, its team is local and the Minister highlighted Mulilo’s success in this window as a positive development.
“What is significant is that more and more South African companies are putting their hand up and they are very competitive. We had 33 bidders from across the globe and it’s exciting that a South African outfit won four out of five. It talks to maturity of South African players and developers that they are ranked among the best in the world. It’s something we want to encourage,” Ramokgopa said.
Commercial close for the five projects is expected in January 2026 and the projects will need to have reached full commercial operations by January 2028, although ‘of course they can do it earlier than that’, the Minister added.
The projects will receive payments for making the capacity available to Eskom’s subsidiary National Transmission Company of South Africa (NTCSA) under a 15-year deal. Eskom/NTCSA will use the BESS to balance and support the grid, predominantly via ancillary services Instantaneous Reserves, Regulating Reserves, Ten Reserves and Supplemental Reserves.
Mulilo and Scatec building up big portfolios in South Africa
Mulilo also won the lion’s share of BESIPPPP Window 2, announced in December 2024, winning five out of eight projects totalling 384MW out of a total 615MW capacity. International IPPs EDF and AMEA Power won the others.
Scatec made its own announcement today, saying the capex for its Leander project is ZAR 2.2 billion (US$120 million) of which its engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract accounts for 80%. Scatec will also provide operations & maintenance (O&M) and asset management services.
The project will be financed by 90% non-recourse project debt and the remaining by equity from the owners. Scatec will own 50.01% of the project equity, with Stanlib’s Greenstreet and Redstreet Funds owning 44.99% and a Community Trust holding 5%.
Scatec also won a project in BESIPPPP Window 1, the 103MW/412MWh Mogobe BESS, one of five totalling 513MW of capacity.
It is also building solar-and-storage projects in South Africa via the separate Risk Mitigation Power Procurement Programme (RMIPPP) scheme. Its Kenhardt solar-and-storage project is pictured above.
Just this week, IPP Globeleq ordered 612MWh of BESS from Sungrow for its Red Sands project, one of the winning bids in BESIPPPP Window 1.
