South Africa is to launch a call for proposals aimed at ramping up battery storage projects across the electricity-starved over the next three years.
National utility Eskom has started work on plans for the “large-scale deployment” of up to 1,440 megawatt-hours of energy storage capacity in total, energy minister Jeff Radebe (pictured) has confirmed.
Radebe told a renewable energy and energy storage systems conference in Cape Town the programme would be implemented in two phases— with a request for proposals for the first phase of 200 MWh of capacity to be released to the market by mid-2019.
South Africa could also draw on “high-quality minerals and industrial capability for battery chemistries, beneficiation and manufacturing, both locally and abroad, for domestic use and export markets”, Radebe said.
The minister said some partnerships had already been formed between government, business, development finance and academic institutions “to develop and commercialise battery energy storage systems in South Africa”, but he did not elaborate.
However, Radebe said South Africa needed to take “a value chain approach to localisation, creating the required technical expertise, designing practical regulations, establishing energy storage standards and incorporating energy storage systems in long-term least-cost electricity system planning”.
According to government statistics, some 85% of South African homes were connected to the mains electricity supply as of 2017. But homes and businesses frequently endure blackouts as Eskom struggles to keep power flowing through the overstretched electricity grid.
In 2018, Eskom launched a pilot solar-powered microgrid project with a lithium-ion battery energy storage system in the country’s Free State province.
Also last year, Australian flow battery producer Redflow won a contract to supply five of its zinc-bromine units to provide standby energy storage for remote telecoms towers in South Africa.
