The sixth bidding round of South Africa’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producers Procurement Programme (REIPPPP) has opened for interested parties.
Late last week South Africa’s Department for Mineral Resource and Energy (DMRE) formally opened the window around six months after winning bids in the tender programme’s fifth round were announced.
The round is seeking to procure around 2.6GW of renewable capacity, and the application process is to remain open until 11 August 2022.
A notice published on the country’s IPP Projects confirms the need for non-refundable deposits of ZAR25,000 (US$1,700) per prospective project to be paid before documents can be submitted.
DMRE is to also host a bidders’ conference online prior to the closure of the round’s deadline, however details of that event are to be made available at a later date.
The REIPPPP has been a success for South Africa’s renewables sector, awarding contracts to gigawatts of renewables capacity over its five previous rounds. However the programme has encountered numerous delays to its initially-forecasted schedule, while projects to have won in previous rounds have also been complicated by grid constraints and domestic content requirements.
Volume 30 of PV Tech Power included a deep dive on South Africa’s renewables potential with a detailed assessment of what to expect from future rounds of the REIPPPP. That feature article can be read here.