AfrElec: Karpowership SA among four emergency generation projects scrapped by South Africa’s utility Eskom

Four emergency power generation projects in South Africa under the government-backed risk mitigation energy procurement round, with combined dispatchable capacity of 1,400 MW, have lost the grid connection allocation.

They include Karpowership SA’s controversial gas-to-power floating power plants at the ports of Richards Bay, Coega and Saldanha. The fourth project – a solar photovoltaic (PV) plant and a gas-to-power plant – is from a single preferred bidder, with facilities located in the Northern Cape and Eastern Cape respectively.

The Risk Mitigation Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (RMIPPPP) was launched by the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) in 2020 for emergency energy procurement aimed at addressing the country’s escalating power cuts, locally known as load-shedding.

The programme aimed to procure a total of 2,000 MW from a range of dispatchable technologies and energy sources including gas, solar PV, wind, battery energy storage systems (BESS) and/or hybrid technologies.

The Independent Power Producer Office (IPPO) is the designated procurer for the RMIPPPP and the state-run power utility Eskom is the designated buyer.

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