A new solar power plant has been built to help Eskom

Wow! It only took one year to build. :)

Financial close for the projects was reached in April 2018. A consortium of commercial banks and Development Finance Institutions with Standard Bank in the lead are providing non-recourse project finance to the project. Construction started in third quarter 2018 with expected grid connection towards the end of 2019.
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LaraC said:
Wow! It only took one year to build. :)
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Yeah, once all the paper work is done, licenses, EIA and the rest, PV solar plants are mostly up and running in 9 to 24 months. The rest of this project will follow in the next few months. The SAWEA, the South African Wind Energy
Association states that after the paper work, their projects are typically completed in 18-24 months.
SA renewable companies should truly also consider combining PV solar with battery storage, contracts for very large projects like that in the USA have been recently signed at 3.3 and 3.8 US cts/kWh. 50-60 Randela cts.
 
86MW so only another 22 of those
 
I wonder how long it would have taken to build - if it would ever be completed - if the government had taken it on?
 
Gordon_R said:
Solar plants average 25% of capacity (24/7/365), so you need a lot of surplus to match a baseload power plant.
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86MW is enough to completely eliminate stage 1/2 loadshedding in a city the size of Bloemfontein. Don't underestimate the contribution.

Also, this 25% capacity factor is misleading. It's more like 95% during the day (sun! duh) and 0% at night. So over 24hours it is 25% average, which tells you nothing.
 
Gaz{M} said:
86MW is enough to completely eliminate stage 1/2 loadshedding in a city the size of Bloemfontein. Don't underestimate the contribution.

Also, this 25% capacity factor is misleading. It's more like 95% during the day (sun! duh) and 0% at night. So over 24hours it is 25% average, which tells you nothing.
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No stage 2 would be 200MW, so it would more than likely just bring it down to stage 1.
 
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77.1c/ kWh. Half the cost of Medupi/Kusile electricity.
 
Lupus said:
No stage 2 would be 200MW, so it would more than likely just bring it down to stage 1.
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"250 MW from the country’s national power grid, enough electricity to supply the city of Bloemfontein for the whole day."

Don't know where you get 200MW from. That is the cut necessary for a city the size of Joburg/PTA at Stage 2.

The entire city of Bloem uses 250MW (this was 2013), so be generous and assume it is 400MW today. So the cut necessary at Stage 2 is 20%, which is 80MW.
 
Gaz{M} said:
86MW is enough to completely eliminate stage 1/2 loadshedding in a city the size of Bloemfontein. Don't underestimate the contribution.

Also, this 25% capacity factor is misleading. It's more like 95% during the day (sun! duh) and 0% at night. So over 24hours it is 25% average, which tells you nothing.
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On cloudy days its a lot less than 90%! In winter the days are shorter, and when the sun is low it drops to a half. If you have fixed panels they don't follow the movement of the sun. The story is complex, but 25% is a good benchmark.
 
I am still not convinced on renewables. They are cool to have as an add-on and they certainly help but I don't think that they are ready to be deployed to replace coal in SA.
 
Nqindi said:
I am still not convinced on renewables. They are cool to have as an add-on and they certainly help but I don't think that they are ready to be deployed to replace coal in SA.
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Why do they need to replace coal?
Also, what aspect of renewables isn't ready (given that the rest of the world is jumping in balls deep).
 
Nqindi said:
Because environment.


My main gripes are reliability which translates to costs.
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BEcause environment? Please expand on that...

And reliability? In what exact sense (given that our coal plants can't seem to maintain even 70% reliability currently)
 
Nqindi said:
I am still not convinced on renewables. They are cool to have as an add-on and they certainly help but I don't think that they are ready to be deployed to replace coal in SA.
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Read the following article and you will realise that renewables, in its various forms (including storage) could easily replace coal in this country. At this point, it's all politics and vested interest groups. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opi...al-so-its-time-to-change-the-energy-ballgame/
 
Gaz{M} said:
"250 MW from the country’s national power grid, enough electricity to supply the city of Bloemfontein for the whole day."

Don't know where you get 200MW from. That is the cut necessary for a city the size of Joburg/PTA at Stage 2.

The entire city of Bloem uses 250MW (this was 2013), so be generous and assume it is 400MW today. So the cut necessary at Stage 2 is 20%, which is 80MW.
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Well it's 2000MW that's needed over all, are you sure Bloem is only using 250Mw?
 
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