South African non-public energy producers are looking for compensation for revenues misplaced when adhering to requests from Eskom to restrict electrical energy provide to the nationwide grid, trade executives mentioned.
Eskom has submitted a proposal to the nation’s vitality regulator to introduce a mechanism to compensate unbiased energy producers (IPPs) for misplaced income ensuing from curtailment charges of as much as 10%.
The curtailment requests are resulting from a scarcity of pylons and excessive voltage energy strains which have induced choke factors in Eskom’s transmission system.
The compensation mechanism is considered one of a number of proposed regulatory reforms as efforts to open up Africa’s largest electrical energy market collect tempo.
“We hope that there will probably be sufficient compensation for technology that’s curtailed,” mentioned Ian Burger, a technical director at non-public energy developer Sola Group.
Burger mentioned Sola Group’s two Lichtenburg photo voltaic PV crops, which every produce simply over 100MW, have been requested in April and Could by Eskom to chop output by as much as 80% and produce solely 20MW.
Sola Group provides energy to miner Tronox.
Eskom research point out that the prices of curbing renewable vitality are considerably decrease than the tons of of billions of rand required for upgrading the community to attach the identical quantity of renewable energy to the grid.
Draft coverage
By lowering technology from unbiased producers, Eskom hopes to right away release an estimated 3.5GW of further capability on the constrained grid.
In July, vitality regulator Nersa launched a draft curtailment congestion coverage based mostly on Eskom’s software looking for approval to categorise it as a “constrained ancillary technology service”. This may enable Eskom to make use of particular formulae to reimburse renewable vitality crops for the facility curtailed due to grid congestion.
“The satan nonetheless is within the element, however this raises the potential of additional minimising the price borne by customers by curbing these IPPs with the bottom tariffs first, versus everybody equally,” mentioned Kilian Hagemann, CEO of G7 Renewable Energies.
Learn: Eskom mulls non-public funding for R395-billion grid improve
Over the previous 5 months, Eskom has supplied steady electrical energy, a feat final achieved in 2020, lowering its reliance on renewable vitality to bolster the grid.
Eskom expects congestion curtailment to be carried out routinely from 2026 onwards, with curtailment ranges growing as extra renewable tasks come on-line. — (c) 2024 Reuters
