The City of Cape Town has issued the latest in a series of power-related tenders aimed at mitigating the impact of loadshedding and diversifying its energy supply from Eskom.

The city says this is in line with its programme of adding independent power to its grid.

The new tender aims to procure power from existing generators.

A two-pronged procurement structure will be followed, allowing bidders to supplement dispatchable/reserve power with an optional self-dispatchable component, with the latter being at a lower cost than the prevailing Eskom Megaflex tariff. 

The maximum envisaged procured capacity (depending on the level of response and pricing) is 300 MW of dispatchable/reserve power capacity and 200 MW of self-dispatchable power capacity. 

The closing date for tender submissions is April 8. 

“The most important current energy priority is ending loadshedding in Cape Town, with short-term plans to protect against the first four stages of Eskom loadshedding by 2026, adding 650 MW of independent power to our mix within five years, and building up to the ultimate goal of access to additional independent power to put an end to Eskom loadshedding,” says City of Cape Town Energy MMC Beverley van Reenen. 

The city’s short-term loadshedding mitigation plans (up to 2026) should be achieved largely through a mix of electricity from the Steenbras hydro plant; 500 MW of dispatchable energy; as well as demand management programmes.

Demand management programmes include the curtailment of large power users, as well as the Power Heroes programme, which is a voluntary scheme for households and small commercial customers that enables the remote control of power-hungry appliances, such as geysers and pool pumps.

The list of Cape Town’s power supply diversification initiatives include securing embedded independent power producer (IPP) renewable energy (200 MW), with the goal of diversifying electricity suppliers for more cost-effective electricity (currently under way); a dispatchable IPP programme (up to 500 MW), which a key loadshedding mitigation mechanism, with ten-year power contracts for dispatchable power plants (under way); wheeling (up to 350 MW), a city-enabled means of third parties selling electricity to each other using existing grid infrastructure (under way); private small-scale embedded generation, or SSEG (up to 100 MW), where residential and commercial customers are enabled to generate electricity for their own use, while also being credited for excess generation (done); and city-owned SSEG, up to 20 MW, from the Atlantis plant (7 MW) and solar energy at city facilities (13 MW) (under way).