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Johannesburg state utility provider City Power has signed short-term power purchase agreements (STPPP) with four independent power producers (IPPs) for 92MW of electricity.

The contracts form part of City Power's plan to lessen the impact of load-shedding by generating 500MW of additional energy by 2030.  

The four IPPs will supply power for a period of three years from a variety of sources including waste-to-energy, gas-to-power and solar photovoltaic (PV) generation. 

Jack Sekwaila, member of the Mayoral Committee for Environment and Infrastructure Services, said: “A total of 16 bids were received and four were successful, with a total aggregated capacity of 92MW."

Waste-to-energy accounts for 20MW, gas-to-power 31MW, and solar 40.8MW. 

“The viable injection points to connect the IPPs have already been identified,” he added. 

The names of the IPPs have not been disclosed.

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— @CityPowerJhb (@CityPowerJhb) August 24, 2023

The STPPP programme targets installations with 1MW and above of excess capacity to improve Johannesburg’s energy security.   

“The main benefit for these STPPPs is that the city will be procuring power from the successful bidders, which is cheaper than what we currently procure from Eskom,” said City Power CEO Tshifularo Mashava. 

South Africa is experiencing increased load-shedding this year as evidenced by City Power’s fourth-quarter report for the financial year 2022/23. “For the period of 1 July 2022 to 31 March 2023, we experienced load-shedding on about 226 days out of 274 days, as compared to the previous financial year, where we experienced load-shedding on 86 days out of 365 days,” the report states. 

Other initiatives being introduced by City Power to reduce the impact of load-shedding include rooftop solar, solar public lighting, off-grid solar and rooftop water heating systems.

Photo: IPP contract signing (Source: City Power)