Energy Dept refining the renewable energy bidding process, says Ramokgopa

CAPE TOWN - Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said that his department was refining the renewable energy bidding process as it looks to transform the country’s energy sector.

These new reforms are expected to be announced within the next five weeks.

During his weekly energy update on Monday, Ramokgopa said that the next renewable energy bid window would target projects that already had a budgeting process in place.

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After nine bid windows for renewable energy projects, the electricity minister said that lessons had been learned about how to improve the process. 

This included issuing separate requests for proposals for wind and solar projects in the future.

"There’s an appreciation that there are things you can do, even before you announce the next bid windows, that can restore or strengthens the confidence of the market in this programme that we are running."

But Ramokgopa said that transmission constraints had limited the award of new projects in the last bid window and was also affecting the credibility of government’s renewable energy programme.

"We’ve not been able to allocate close to 3,000 megawatts in the last bid window because of grid capacity, so the market will not have confidence in this programme."

While acknowledging that renewable energy projects were far more labour intensive in their construction phase than when in operation, Ramokgopa said the socioeconomic benefits could not be dismissed. 

It's estimated that more than 85,000 jobs can be created from these renewable energy projects over time.