South Africa’s Department of Energy has approved 19 proposals for renewable energy projects in the second round of its request for bids.
The Department of Energy received 79 bids in total for the second round, of which 51 met the qualification criteria. However, given the MW limitation and competition, only 19 bidders were selected as preferred.
Together, the second round proposals represent almost R28 billion in investment.
As part of its strategy to meet energy demand, in 2011 South Africa launched a process to eventually add a total of 3,625 MW of green energy to its grid by 2016, which it anticipated would attract proposals to the value of R100 billion.
The preferred bidders selected in the second round comprise one concentrated solar power project, nine solar photovoltaic projects, seven onshore wind proposals and two smaller hydropower projects.
The total capacity on offer for the second round was 1,275 MW. The first round, which was approved last December, had a total capacity of 1,416 MW, with preferred bidder status awarded to 28 proposals out of the 53 received.
