South Africa’s Department of Energy (DoE) received 384 responses from renewable energy developers in response to a request for information (RFI) issued at the end of September for the initial phase of the country’s renewable energy feed-in-tariff (Refit) programme.
Altogether, the projects represented some 20 000 MW of renewable energy capacity, as well as 4 000 MW of cogeneration capacity.
However, the DoE indicated on Monday that only a small number of the projects were in a sufficient “state of readiness” to participate in a full-blown procurement process, which would culminate in a power purchase agreement (PPA) with Eskom.
Fewer than 30 of the projects proposed through the RFI process had, for instance, received an indicative quote and preliminary timeframe for grid connection, which gave an indication that grid readiness was a potential barrier for deployment.
