A procurement and funding strategy empowering Eskom to proceed with a five-year emergency procurement programme has been finalised and will be presented to the State-owned utility’s board for approval during May.

National Energy Crisis Committee (NECOM) secretariat head Rudi Dicks said on Friday that a Ministerial determination opening the way for the Load Shedding Reduction Programme (LSRP) had been published by Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe and was currently awaiting the concurrence of the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa).

Nersa will host virtual hearings on May 19 ahead of it providing concurrence with three determinations, including one that opens the way for the procurement of up to 2 000 MW of new generation capacity under the LSRP.

The other two determinations relate to the procurement of up to 1 000 MW of cross-border capacity from a range of energy producers and up to 800 MW of new generation capacity from a range of energy technologies in accordance with the ‘Emergency Generation Procurement Programme’.

On February 15, Nersa published consultation papers ahead of it providing concurrence with the determinations and set March 16 as the closing date for written comments. The regulator also intends hosting a public hearing, which will take place between 14:30 and 17:00 on May 19.

During a briefing, Dicks also confirmed that preparations were under way for Bid Window Seven of the renewables procurement programme during which 5 000 MW of wind and solar would be allocated for provinces with available grid capacity.

“This will be followed by the sequenced release of further bid windows to bring the total new capacity procured to 15 000 MW.”

During the most recent bid window, not a single wind project advanced to preferred-bidder status after Eskom indicated that the grid capacity on which the projects were premised had been absorbed by private projects.

Dicks reported that NECOM had established new workstreams to focus on transmission and distribution capacity and that 25 priority transmission projects had been identified, which could together unlock grid capacity to facilitate 12 000 MW of additional generation.

It was also confirmed that the “use it or lose it” principle would apply should projects that had been allocated capacity not proceed as advertised.

Dicks also announced that further requests for proposals for 1 200 MW of battery storage and 3 000 MW of gas were being prepared in line with new Ministerial determinations and were expected to be released in June.

The battery procurement would be in addition to the procurement already under way for battery energy storage systems with a combined capacity of 513 MW and a minimum of four hours of storage, or at least 2 052 MWh.

Efforts were also under way to progress a further seven projects procured under Bid Window Five of the renewables programme to financial close, with six having achieved that milestone to date, as well as the six solar projects that advanced to preferred bidder status under Bid Window Six.

Should all the projects reach financial close a total of 2 800 MW will be added to the grid over the coming two years.

In addition, Dicks indicated that government was keen for the five “hybrid projects” selected under the risk mitigation bid window to reach financial close, but made no mention of the powerships also selected during that controversial procurement round.