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Eskom’s Transmission Division, which will form part of the separated National Transmission Company South Africa once established later this year, will begin relying more heavily on the engineer, procure and construct (EPC) contracting model as it seeks to accelerate the pace at which transmission infrastructure is built in a context where the lack of grid has become a key impediment to the injection of new generation capacity.

In an address to suppliers, MD Segomoco Scheppers reported that South Africa needed to add more than 1 500 km of new transmission lines yearly between now and 2032 to ensure that the infrastructure was in place to facilitate the addition of more than 50 GW of new generation capacity, mostly in the form of variable renewables, over the period.

He revealed that the division was currently only adding 300 km of new power lines yearly, a pace that was entirely insufficient to ensure that 14 000 km of new lines were installed over the ten-year horizon from 2022 to 2032.

In the ten years from 2013 to 2022, only 4 347 km of new powerlines were added.

In addition, more than 122 600 MVA-worth of transformation capacity would have to be added, representing 77% of Eskom’s current installed base of just over 160 000 MVA. In the prior ten-year period only 19 060 MVA was introduced.

Scheppers reported that the EPC model would be used in tandem with Eskom’s more traditional procurement models in an effort to ensure that transmission infrastructure was delivered at “a scale and at a speed that we have not done before”.

The model would involve either Eskom Transmission or an owner’s engineer completing the front-end engineering design and overseeing the procurement of a single EPC contractor, which would be expected to complete the detailed design, procure the necessary material, and construct and commission the solution, before handing it over as a fully functional and compliant asset to the transmission division.

Transmission project GM Naresh Singh said the EPC contracting model was being introduced not only because of the “monumental task ahead” but because Eskom’s current model had become too complex and time consuming to ensure that the grid was deployed at the pace currently required.

“Our processes have become bureaucratic, lethargic, non-value creating and ineffective and we are very convinced that changing strategy to be EPC-heavy will result in better outcomes for transmission and the country at large,” Singh explained.

Using EPC as the main “strategy of choice” was also an acknowledgment that Eskom, which had once been regarded as a reference point internationally, had fallen far behind global best practice and that its technological status had “substantially diminished”.

There are reportedly also separate discussions under way about the prospect of employing public-private partnerships to build and operate grid assets for a period of about 20 years, but Eskom did not discuss such an approach during the meeting with suppliers.

Scheppers acknowledged ongoing scepticism regarding the credibility of the investment plan in light of Eskom’s previous failure to deliver new grid infrastructure in line with previous Transmission Development Plans.

However, he said there was recognition at the highest level of government about the constraint the lack of grid was placing on the connection of much-needed generation capacity, as became apparent when no wind projects advanced during a recent procurement round for 3 200 MW of new wind capacity, owing to a lack of grid.

There was also a clear message that grid investment should be prioritised as part of conditions linked to the R254-billion debt relief being extended to Eskom by the National Treasury.

He reported that 80% of the R74-billion required to invest in the grid over the coming five years had already been secured, which he said should provide the supplier community with a “higher degree of confidence” that the investments would materialise.

“All the key stakehold...

Hino South Africa (SA) has launched the all-new 700 Series to complete its local truck line-up.

The first 700 Series of extra-heavy trucks was introduced to the local market in 2004, with the range upgraded and enhanced in 2019.

The 2023 model, however, “takes big steps forward in terms of its technology, with huge benefits regarding active and passive safety systems, as well as improved fuel economy, all of which contribute to a lower total cost of ownership”, promises the local arm of the Japanese truck maker.

“Our current ranges of 200 and 300 Series medium trucks are proving very popular, as is our 500 series in the heavy-truck segment, and now we’ll also have a strong competitor in the high-volume, extra-heavy category,” says new Hino SA VP Anton Falck.

“Minimising downtime for our customers was a prime aim with the redesign of this important model.”

The exterior of the Hino 700 Series has undergone its first major design change in 14 years, while the interior has also been revamped, with a focus on improving comfort and ergonomics to reduce driver fatigue.

It is also easier to get in and out of the new cab, says Hino SA.

The range has four basic models, including a tipper, freight carrier and two truck-tractors – all 6 x 4 configurations.

The vehicles are all powered by derivatives of the well-known 13-litre Hino E13C six-cylinder turbocharged and intercooled diesel engine.

Several fuel-saving changes have been made across the vehicle, including the switch from a variable nozzle type turbocharger to a conventional type that facilitates a weight reduction of 13 kg.

Significant fuel saving is also possible when the standard Eco Mode driving system is used.

Both engines are mated to a ZF 16-speed Traxon automated manual transmission, offering fully automatic shifting with optional manual override.

This makes it not only easier on the driver, but also saves fuel with optimised gear selection.

Another major change has been made in the redesign of the rear suspension, resulting in a 20% weight reduction.

Front and rear suspension is by leaf springs, while the power-assisted, variable ratio rack-and-pinion steering now has a variable hydraulic pump as another contributor to saving fuel.

Despite these fuel-savings enhancements, the big news is the new safety aspects of the 700 Series, says Hino SA.

Firstly, there is the pre-collision system (PCS), which uses a millimetre wave radar and an image-based sensor to predict the presence of a vehicle or pedestrian on the road ahead.

If the system judges that there is a high risk of a collision, it issues audible and visual warnings to the driver, while also using brake-control support to avoid a collision, or to reduce collision damage.

The system will assist the driver in using the brake pedal, while the truck will decelerate, even if the driver fails to push the brake pedal.

Secondly, there is a lane departure warning system that uses an image-based sensor installed on the front windshield to detect the lane markings ahead.

A warning buzzer and dashboard display alert the driver if the truck deviates from its lane.

Thirdly, a staggering warning system alerts the driver if the truck starts weaving across the road.

If the staggering continues without being addressed by the driver, the PCS will prepare to activate.

A further safety feature is the driver monitor camera which constantly checks the driver’s posture, face direction and the state of the eyelids – open or closed.

If the system detects insufficient driver focus on the road, the driver will be alerted with a buzzer and a warning message on the dashboard.

Another standard feature of the new Hino 700 Series is adaptive cruise control, which uses a millimetre wave radar to detect preceding vehicles, and to automatically maintain an appropriate vehicle-to-vehicle distance.

This reduces the need for accelerating and braking by the driver, contributing to reducing fatigue.

The vehicle-to-vehicle distance control operates between t...

The appetite for rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) installations has reached record levels in Cape Town, with March now the best month on record for new applications to install solar energy, says Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis.

This comes as residents look to capitalise on incentive programmes to help end load-shedding over time.

“February may have shattered all records for solar PV installation applications to the city, but March and April have both already surpassed this,” says Hill-Lewis.

“The city has already received 2 333 solar PV installation applications so far this year, with close to 700 in March alone, making it the biggest month to date.

“Just the first four months of 2023 account for 21% of all solar PV applications received since records began,” notes Hill-Lewis.

“Most of Cape Town’s installed solar PV capacity is commercial, but residential applications are what’s driving record-breaking interest levels,” he adds.

“This clearly shows the effect of our policy shift to expand how we are actively supporting the uptake of safe and legal solar installations.”

To make solar installations more attractive, the city has decided to raise its residential small-scale embedded generation tariff by 10.15% for 2023/24, with an added 25c a kWh incentive.

Cape Town offers households and businesses cash for their excess rooftop solar power.

The city is set to start paying businesses under its Cash-for-Power programme in June, while residents will be able to start selling power for cash later this year.

Remote Control

Hill-Lewis noted last week that Cape Town's Power Heroes campaign will offer further incentives for households, with residents able to sign up for remote demand management, with power-hungry geysers and pool pumps to be switched off during peak periods.

“Should just 25 000 of Cape Town’s more than 600 000 electricity customers sign up as Power Heroes, we can protect against an additional one full stage of loadshedding during peak hours,” says Hill-Lewis.

“And, for every 20 000 customers we add to the programme, we will be able to expand the hours of the day we can protect against loadshedding.

“The programme is entirely voluntary, and costs nothing for those who sign up, so we are calling on as many families as possible to sign up to be Power Heroes.”

Cape Town is also forging ahead with its three-phase procurement programme to end loadshedding, with the aim of protecting residents from the first four stages of Eskom’s loadshedding within three years.

Energy MMC Beverley van Reenen says the city will this year award contracts for 200 MW of renewable energy, with 500 MW of dispatchable energy currently out on tender.

“These initiatives take place alongside key municipal generation projects, such as the Steenbras Hydro Pumped Storage Scheme, which aims to save up to two stages where possible, and the forthcoming R1.2-billion solar plant and battery project on a portion of Paardevlei in Somerset West, capable of providing a full stage of loadshedding protection during the day.”

As the energy crisis in the country incrementally worsens, the ramifications are considerable for property owners, who are having to resort to various options to limit the impact of prolonged periods of outages, future-proof their assets and ensure business continuity.

However, this is not enough to contain the fallout, and property owners are also calling for efforts to be bolstered, through other solutions, to resolve the energy challenges.

These are the key takeaways from industry organisation the South African Property Owners Association’s (Sapoa’s) Industry Survey for March, titled ‘Impact of Loadshedding on the Commercial Property Industry’.

Sapoa members have warned that unless loadshedding comes to an end, rentals will come under pressure, as tenants will not be able to consistently carry the burden of high diesel costs, which negatively affect property values.

They also pointed out that the cost of doing business was increasing with loadshedding.

Respondents to the survey operate primarily in the commercial office space, which comprised 64.71% of respondents. This is followed by industrial/logistics, shopping centres, residential and hotels, tourism and leisure.

The respondents stated that they had to deal with substantial periods of loadshedding over the past year, with 61.18% estimating that their organisation had been subjected to loadshedding daily in the past year. This was closely followed by 34.12% of respondents who had been subjected to loadshedding a few times a week.

The respondents’ businesses were adversely impacted on by loadshedding, with almost half, at 44.07%, saying loadshedding had a serious impact on their business.

Moreover, 28.81% noted a very serious impact, affecting business vitality and sustainability, closely followed by 25.42% of respondents experiencing a moderate impact. Only 1.69% were unaffected.

In cost terms, 55.36% of respondents estimated that monthly indirect costs incurred because of loadshedding, such as lost labour, productivity and resultant damage to machinery, ranged from R100 000 to R500 000. Moreover, 21.43% estimated this to be between R1-million and R5-million.

The highest impact on service delivery, as a result of loadshedding, was electrical damage to equipment, with 65.38% of respondents being affected.

This was closely followed by excessive capital expenditure on infrastructure to minimise the impact, with 63.46% of respondents experiencing this, while 26.92% of respondents noted an impact in terms of rental reversions.

The outlook for the future is also bleak, as 90.38% of respondents expect loadshedding to worsen.

Call for Action

In the survey, members proffered a myriad of suggestions that they believe would assist in alleviating the current loadshedding situation.

The suggestions included calls for government to appoint more engineers to address the situation, while Sapoa members also want local government to take action, where applicable, and to play a bigger role in terms of short-term solutions.

The need for better government decisions that acknowledge the severity of the situation was emphasised.

“Government must take ownership of the crisis and make a concerted effort to stamp out corruption,” a response to the survey states.

Further, it was averred that government and State-owned utility Eskom should focus on rectifying the underlying problems plaguing the entity, including corruption, crime, cartels, inefficiencies and ageing infrastructure.

Sapoa members would also like to see increased public pressure by local industry bodies on all three spheres of government to expeditiously resolve the power crisis.

From a legislative viewpoint, the complete separation of Eskom into generation, transmission and distribution entities, currently being undertaken, must be expedited, according to the survey.

Other recommendations entailed government’s introducing emergency energy power procurement and the opening up of wheeling frameworks for all municipalities.

The sur...

Following more than two months of uncertainty and reported Cabinet infighting, President Cyril Ramaphosa has transferred Ministerial powers, albeit quite limited, relating to the procurement of new electricity generation to Electricity Minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa.

Until now Ramakgopa has had no formal Ministerial powers, despite having been appointed on March 7 and despite the President having indicated that he intended using Section 97 of the Constitution to grant such powers.

Through a proclamation communicated on May 26, the Presidency reported that Ramaphosa had transferred to the Minister of Electricity certain powers and functions entrusted by the Electricity Regulation Act, previously held by Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe.

Mantashe, who initially described the Electricity Minister as a “project manager” and who reportedly told Ramaphosa he would consider quitting if powers were taken from him, has been criticised by several commentators for failing to ensure that new generation was added at a sufficient speed and scale to reduce the risk of loadshedding, which is currently being implemented daily by Eskom.

In a statement, the Presidency reported that Ramaphosa had transferred to Ramokgopa “all powers and functions contained in Section 34(1) of the Electricity Regulation Act, which were previously entrusted to the Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy”.

The President had also transferred to the Minister of Electricity relevant powers and functions set out in Section 34(2) of the Electricity Regulation Act.

Section 34 of the Act, the statement adds, deals with new generation capacity and provides for the Minister, in consultation with the regulator, to:

(a) determine that new generation capacity is needed to ensure the continued uninterrupted supply of electricity;

(b) determine the types of energy sources from which electricity must be generated, and the percentages of electricity that must be generated from such sources;

(c) determine that electricity thus produced may only be sold to the persons or in the manner set out in such notice;

(d) determine that electricity thus produced must be purchased by the persons set out in such notice;

(e) require that new generation capacity must –

(i) be established through a tendering procedure which is fair, equitable, transparent, competitive and cost-effective; and

(ii) provide for private sector participation.

“This proclamation will provide the Minister of Electricity with the powers necessary to direct the procurement of new generation capacity and ensure security of supply.

“Other powers and functions contained in the Electricity Regulation Act – including those related to the implementation of determinations made in terms of section 34 – will remain with the Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy.”

LIMITED POWERS

It was not immediately clear, whether Ramokgopa had been given powers for policy development as well for implementation, but a close reading of the Gazetted proclamation suggests that only limited powers have been extended, even on the procurement front.

The Minister does not appear to have been given an policy authority over the Integrated Resources Plan, for instance, or even authority over the IPP Office, which procures electricity on behalf of government.

His powers may actually be limited to the issuance of a determination, and Mantashe has already issued several of these, including determinations giving Eskom the right to pursue emergency and cross-border power.

The statement adds that the President’s delineation of powers and functions is aimed at ensuring effective coordination and dedicated focus to deal more effectively and urgently with the electricity crisis.

“The Minister of Electricity will, as the President indicated in the State of the Nation Address, oversee all aspects of the electricity crisis response, including the work of the National Energy Crisis Committee.

“This will provide a single point of command for ...

Legislation is being prepared to begin overhauling South Africa’s corruption-prone public procurement system. Terence Creamer discusses what some of these changes might look like.

With insufficient grid capacity having been identified as the main constraint to the public procurement of the 28 GW of new electricity capacity allowed for by 2030 under various Ministerial determinations, IPP Office head Bernard Magoro reports that several new options are being considered to unlock existing grid capacity, including accepting some level of curtailment.

Addressing the South African National Energy Association’s annual general meeting, Magoro reported that a cost-benefit analysis would be undertaken into whether curtailment should be factored into future procurement rounds so as to unlock grid capacity, while additional transmission lines and substations were developed in parallel.

Curtailment, which carries an economic cost as it results in electricity being wasted, is implemented either when there is a system-wide oversupply, or when there are local transmission constraints, and is considered normal in most jurisdictions.

During South Africa’s most recent renewables procurement round, known as Bid Window Six (BW6), none of the wind projects bidding for a 3 200 MW allocation progressed to preferred-bidder status after Eskom indicated that the grid capacity on which the projects were based had been absorbed.

Some commentators noted that the projects could have proceeded had there been a greater tolerance for economic curtailment, which in the context of South Africa’s electricity shortages would likely have been an acceptable cost to absorb, as the wind farms would have contributed to reducing the intensity of far costlier loadshedding.

Magoro said there was still a need for a study to assess the economic benefits and costs of allowing for a level of curtailment, as well as how the risks should be distributed between the buyers and sellers.

“It we are going to curtail 20%, it might not make sense, but if its 5% or 10%, it could make business sense.

“But those discussions are still ongoing between ourselves and Eskom,” he said, adding that as there would be an impact on the tariff any decision would also need to be approved by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa.

“However, once there is an agreement [on curtailment] it will mean that more capacity will be unlocked from a transmission grid perspective, which allows us [as the IPP Office] to run more procurement programmes to get more capacity on the grid.”

It is uncertain, however, whether such an agreement will be in place in time for BW7, which will be for 5 GW and is currently scheduled for release to the market during the second quarter of the current financial year that runs to March, with BW8 scheduled for the fourth quarter.

In a statement released independently of Magoro’s presentation, the South African Wind Energy Association (SAWEA) also indicated that curtailment would have to be considered as part of urgent efforts to unlock the grid capacity needed to allow for a yearly addition of about 5 GW of renewables capacity.

SAWEA believes that, by pairing wind and solar power plants, a single transmission connection point can be used more effectively, matching renewable energy generation profiles with energy demand.

“There are matters of grid balancing and curtailment that need to be considered and well managed for such solutions to be employed,” SAWEA said, arguing that such an approach was technically viable but needed stakeholders to work together to create the mechanisms needed to add new generation capacity.

The wind body also stressed the need for a modification of the grid-allocation rules, which had reportedly been updated to ensure greater queuing certainty and fairness and were currently awaiting governance approvals within Eskom.

Magoro reported that the other options being investigated to “optimise” grid capacity included adding additional battery storage and also reviving the concept of solar parks so that transmission investment could be directed towards areas where there would be multiple generators in a concentrated area.

It is ...

Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan says the restructuring under way at South Africa’s troubled State-owned electricity producer will result in a new-look entity that “will no longer be the old Eskom as we know it” by the end of March next year.

Delivering his Budget Vote to lawmakers, Gordhan said the National Transmission Company of South Africa (NTC) would be fully operationalised by November and that the identities of its independent board members would be announced “shortly”.

The long-awaited separation of the NTC from Eskom’s generation and distribution divisions has been prioritise in light of the importance of such an entity in levelling the playing field between Eskom generation and independent power producers, even though it will initially remain a subsidiary of Eskom Holdings.

Progress has been stilted, and the November timeframe is a few months behind the mid-2023 aspiration outlined in April when an application was made to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa for Eskom’s national transmission, trading and import and export licences to be transferred to the NTC.

Gordhan also announced that the distribution subsidiary would be “corporatised” by the end of December, while a due diligence for the establishment of a generation company and a new holding company would be completed by the end of March.

“So, Eskom will no longer be the old Eskom as we know it by the time we get to the end of this financial year,” the Minister told lawmakers.

Gordhan said that similarly far-reaching restructuring was under way at freight logistics group Transnet and that a roadmap for the future of Transnet should be completed in the next three months.

“An optimisation of the implementation of private partnerships, both in rail and ports, [and] the overhaul of the freight rail infrastructure to recapture freight volumes are part of the objectives that Transnet is working towards.”

He also insisted that progress was being made on a new legislative framework for all South Africa’s State-owned enterprises (SOEs), many of which are in financial distress and have been shown to be hotbeds of corruption.

He said draft legislation for the future governance of SOEs was ready, while the business case for an overarching holding company for SOEs had also been completed.

The formation of the holding company had been proposed by the Presidential SOE Council set up in June 2020 and would draw in lessons from similar structures in countries such as Malaysia, China and Singapore.

Gordhan said the new holding company structure would seek to sustain the current separation between policy and operational functions, but could allow for a leveraging of the collective balance sheets of the entities.

“Of course, in the process, we have to overcome the legacy of State capture and to improve operational effectiveness.”

The National Treasury has provided insight into some of the legislative changes that have been proposed in the long-awaited Public Procurement Bill, which is expected to be officially tabled before Parliament in the coming weeks.

In a presentation to Parliament’s Standing Committee on Finance – cut short when it emerged that the Bill was still awaiting certification by the Office of the Chief State Law Adviser – acting director-general Ismail Momoniat said the changes were designed to address the fact that the current public procurement system was not only prone to corruption but was also failing to deliver services efficiently and effectively.

“The public procurement system is not working,” he said bluntly, while also stressing that the proposed legislation would only provide a framework for modernisation, with the actual changes to the system, including how preferential procurement would be implemented across all spheres of government, depending largely on subsequent regulations.

Currently, preferential procurement, which seeks to use procurement as an instrument of socioeconomic transformation by supporting individuals and groups that faced exclusion and discrimination under apartheid, is being governed by ‘stop gap’ regulations that came into effect on January 16.

The regulations were introduced following a February 2022 Constitutional Court judgment, ruling that the Finance Minister had exceeded his powers by prescribing procurement rules to organs of State. This meant that the 2017 regulations under the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act were found to have fallen foul of with Section 217 of the Constitution.

The Public Procurement Bill is expected to play a role in remedying this contravention, while also providing the basis for several other reforms aimed at improving transparency, decreasing the propensity for corruption, making greater use of automation and introducing differentiation in the ways various goods and services are procured.

Value for money receives priority in the Bill, which currently comprises seven chapters, with the proposed legislation defining value for money as the primary objective of public procurement, with socioeconomic objectives to be pursued as secondary objectives.

In line with the Constitutional Court ruling, public institutions will be expected to create their own procurement policies, using the parameters outlined in the legislation for the allocation of contracts and the protection or advancement of categories of people disadvantaged by unfair discrimination.

Importantly, the proposed legislation departs from the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach by introducing differentiated procurement systems, whereby distinction is made between the routine procurement of goods and services by a public entity or department as opposed to the procurement of infrastructure and capital assets.

Chapter 5 stipulates that the Minister must prescribe a procurement system for infrastructure and capital goods, as well as the goods and services related to it.

The National Treasury indicates that these prescriptions will be outlined in regulations and will cover social infrastructure such as schools and clinics, as well as mega-projects and network infrastructure.

The Bill also seeks to institutionalise so-called ‘strategic procurement’, which is defined as a shift from “transactional buying to commercial decision making”, which could imply that competitive bidding will not always be the default method of procurement.

It also introduces greater flexibility with regards to the thresholds that can be used when evaluating tenders, which have hitherto been limited to either an 80/20 or 90/10 preference point system, where the weighting given to pricing in the adjudication is either 80% or 90%.

The National Treasury says the choice of the preference points system will depend on what the institution is seeking to promote, and institutions are also empowered to have more than once preference point system.

In o...

Mobile telecoms company Vodacom has approach Eskom with a ‘virtual wheeling platform’ concept that the communications group believes could assist it and other companies with distributed electricity demand profiles to meet their decarbonisation goals, while also contributing to lowering the risk of loadshedding.

The proposed solution, an outline of which was presented by CEO Shameel Joosub during the 2023 edition of the South African Investment Conference in April, does not involve any specific new investments by either Eskom, Vodacom or potential participants.

Instead, its seeks to aggregate electricity consumed across different locations and reconcile that with aggregated renewable electricity produced by independent power producers (IPPs).

The concept itself emerged following a Vodacom assessment of the various options available to it for meeting its goal of transitioning to 100% renewable electricity by 2025.

The group, which continues to pursue various direct renewables projects, discovered several technical constraints to either converting fossil-fuel-based electricity supplies directly with on-site renewables that were difficult to scale, or doing so using a traditional wheeling framework.

It was convinced those limitations could be overcome using technology and approached Eskom in 2022, through its subsidiary Mezzanine, with a proposal to co-develop a virtual wheeling platform.

The concept, Vodacom’s stresses, is not new, as energy is traded in a similar way elsewhere in the world, including in the UK. However, it had to be adapted to South Africa’s specific conditions.

“Essentially energy produced from IPPs is aggregated and reconciled with the aggregated energy that is consumed at different locations or sites.

“Vodacom pays for all the energy that is produced by the IPPs and Eskom refunds Vodacom for all IPP-produced energy consumed, as aggregated across our footprint, using the Wholesale Energy Pricing System, or WEPS, time-of-use tariff (ToU) structure,” the company explains.

The wheeled energy refund would be based on a formula that calculates the lower of the offtakers’ active consumed energy or the wheeled (generated) energy, multiplied using the ToU structure at the Eskom Gen-Wheeling tariff and the refund would then be processed at the end of the calendar month.

“Vodacom benefits by having access to renewable electricity aligned with our renewable energy targets,” the company explains to Engineering News.

Eskom, meanwhile, gains access to off-balance sheet power that they can scale with relative ease as more companies or “tenants” join the platform.

“Naturally, there are risks, including the fact that, at this point, Eskom is not in a position to provide a refund to ‘tenants’ located within municipalities that are in default.

“As Vodacom’s estate is distributed across all municipalities in South Africa, this limits the ability to scale the solution to cover 100% of the Vodacom estate.”

Nevertheless, a ‘Virtual Wheeling Agreement’ has been developed by Eskom and is currently in the final stages of review.

Once it is signed-off, Vodacom will secure IPPs and, thereafter, the development of the solar and wind farms will begin, if not already in commission.

Given that the agreement is yet to be finalised, the solution has been tested using only static data.

“A dynamic test will follow once the agreement has been signed,” Vodacom tells Engineering News.

The group also believes that the platform could contribute to reducing loadshedding as it could unlock renewables capacity to help close the large prevailing supply/demand gap.

“This will take time, including the time needed for the IPPs to build new plants, and requires uptake by other businesses in South Africa.

“Vodacom has envisioned the solution, but the success of the solution as a mechanism to mitigate loadshedding is dependent on other businesses that follow.”