SAWEA files complaint against Eskom

The South African Wind Energy Association (SAWEA) has lodged an official complaint with the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) over the refusal of grid operator Eskom to continue signing power purchase agreements (PPAs) for renewable energy.

“The industry believes that Eskom, which is by far the largest generator in the country, is abusing its position as the operator of the national grid in order to favour its own investment in new power plants,” SAWEA said in a statement on Monday.

In July this year Eskom refused to enter into new deals with independent power producers (IPPs) beyond those currently in progress. ( http://renewables.seenews.com/news/eskom-move-puts-future-renewables-projects-in-s-africa-at-risk-533589 )

Since renewable energy projects can only sell power to Eskom, not being able to sign a PPA, makes it very difficult, if not impossible to secure project financing.

SAWEA has requested that if found guilty, Eskom should be fined with the maximum legislated penalty of 10% of turnover for each day that it continues to delay the programme,.

According to calculations of the association, the renewable energy independent power producer procurement (REIPPP) programme has so far awarded 6,590 MW of renewable energy capacity to 102 independent power producers, of which at least 44 are already operational.

REIPPP is estimated to attract new private sector investment worth ZAR 194 billion (USD 13.8 bn / EUR 12.7 bn), mostly in economically underdeveloped areas.

(ZAR 1 = USD 0.072/ EUR 0.066)

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