South Africa’s electricity minister has said the largest solar-plus-storage project in the Southern Hemisphere is evidence of efforts to mitigate the country’s difficult energy security situation.
Eskom, the public utility company of South Africa, has inaugurated a 20MW/100MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) aimed at mitigating the challenging situation facing the country’s grid.
South Africa needs to prioritise grid-located battery storage if it is to overcome the ongoing ‘load-shedding’ power outage crisis plaguing the country.
It is “unacceptable” for a rural electricity supplier to use solar to prevent load-shedding, but batteries or other grid-independent electricity sources could be used, Eskom said.
Battery storage has a big role to play in helping reduce renewable energy curtailment in California but the amount of shedded load will still grow in 2023, an analyst told Energy-Storage.news.
Will the Indian battery market scenario witness a major change? As the power supply in the country continues to be unreliable, the role of batteries has to change from being an emergency back-up solution to a long time power/energy storage solution.
