South African battery storage procurement draws 33 bids

South Africa’s Independent Power Producers (IPP) Office has said 33 bids have been received as part of the third window of the country’s battery energy storage auctions. The bids have come from 28 companies, with two bidding for multiple sites. The bidders include France’s TotalEnergies, which has made several submissions.

The third window of the BESIPPPP was announced in March 2024 with a target of securing 616 MW/2,464 MWh of new energy storage-related electricity capacity. Projects will be installed across five substations in Free State province. The Harvard, Leander, Theseus, Everest, and Merapi substations were nominated by national energy utility Eskom.

Providing more energy storage is key to Eskom’s strategy to stabilize the South African grid.

Bid submission date for the auction was supposed to be in July 2024 but was moved to November 2024. The IPP Office published the identities of the bidders on its website on Nov. 28.

Preferred bidders will be named during February 2025, with commercial close of successful projects to be completed no later than six months after the preferred bidders are revealed. Financial close would be expected no more than a month after commercial close, and the projects must be completed within two years, the IPP Office said. All the projects must be either 123 MW or 124 MW in scale.

The previous BESIPPPP window received 31 bids from 26 companies for 615 MW/2,460 MWh of energy storage. As the announcement related to that procurement round was made in August 2024, the IPP Office should be close to naming preferred bidders.

Two projects that were allocated under the first BESIPPPP window have achieved commercial close. The 77 MW/308 MWh Oasis Aggeneis and 103 MW/412 MWh Oasis Nieuwhoop sites belong to French developer EDF Renewables and will be located in the Northern Cape province. They are expected to come online by November 2026.