- Eskom, the state-owned energy company of South Africa, awarded contracts to Hyosung Heavy Industries and Pinggao Group following a competitive and transparent bidding process for the provision of battery energy storage solutions for its flagship Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) project, which was launched in 2019.
- The contract is for design, supply and installation as well as operating and maintenance for a 5-year period.
The first battery energy storage project to be delivered in South Africa will use the Eskom BESS project as a proof of concept. The project tackles regional overall system concerns while demonstrating large-scale deployment in support of South Africa’s renewable energy plan.
It is envisioned that gains from the BESS project will help to alleviate the pressure on the national electricity grid. The project will be used primarily for national peak shaving (managing demand) purposes for four hours a day at least 250 days of the year.
The project is designed to utilise large-scale utility batteries with a capacity of 1440MWh per day and a 60MW solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity to be implemented in two phases.
Phase 1 includes the installation of approximately 199MW additional capacity. With four hours of storage, this equals 833MWh storage of distributed battery storage plants at eight Eskom Distribution substation sites.
Phase 2 includes the installation of a total of 144MW which is equivalent to 616MWh at four Eskom Distribution sites and one Transmission site.
Approval for the BESS implementation has been obtained from the World Bank. The project is co-financed by the African Development Bank, New Development Bank, the World Bank and the Clean Technology Fund (CTF).
