'Eskom land lease deal for green energy a huge step to reduce load shedding'
The Money Show interviews energy analyst Chris Yelland, MD of EE Business Intelligence.
As South Africa was plunged back into Stage 2 load shedding this week, Eskom has announced that it's selected 18 companies to develop renewable energy projects.
The power utility will lease parts of its land in Mpumalanga to the bidders for this purpose.
Contracts can only be signed once the unnamed companies have obtained environmental impact assessment clearance, Eskom says.
The bids relate to 4,000 hectares of Eskom land, out of the 36,000 hectares available.
Successful companies will be announced once all the processes have been finalised, "hopefully by August".
"The current projects will bring online a total of 1,800MW generation capacity, once connected."
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Motheo Khoaripe (in for Bruce Whitfield) gets comment from Chris Yelland, energy analyst and MD of EE Business Intelligence.
Yelland describes the move as "a huge step forward".
... part of the liberalisation of the electricity supply industry... a big change in Eskom's thinking... It is now encouraging making land use **and** grid connections available to private developers to build independent power producer (IPP) plants...
Chris Yelland, Energy analyst and MD - EE Business Intelligence
Yelland clarifies that this electricity will be delivered to industries that need this power and "not to you and me".
... supplying this power from the IPPs directly to the offtaker, that is large industry in that area (and you can guess who the largest industry in that area is!).
Chris Yelland, Energy analyst and MD - EE Business Intelligence
This will relieve Eskom of a burden it is currently unable to meet Yelland says.
"It is going to help you and me by reducing load shedding... by reducing demand on the Eskom system it means that we could be relieved of load shedding."
Let's just say 1,000 MW is delivered from the new generators to the offtakers, relieving Eskom... that will reduce load shedding by one stage. They're talking about 1,800 MW - that's close on two stages of load shedding!
Chris Yelland, Energy analyst and MD - EE Business Intelligence
Listen to Yelland discuss the benefits of the agreement for all parties:
This article first appeared on CapeTalk : 'Eskom land lease deal for green energy a huge step to reduce load shedding'
