South Africa’s public energy utility Eskom has today announced that it has appointed two service providers to begin its battery energy storage project.
SA Load Shedding, According to Eskom, the project is focused on alleviating some of the pressure off of South Africa’s electricity grid and works toward lessening the impact of load shedding. “Following a competitive and transparent bidding process, Eskom has awarded contracts to two successful bidders – Hyosung Heavy Industries and Pinggao Group – for the provision of battery storage solutions,” reads the utility’s announcement posted on Twitter Friday morning.
The contracts won by South Korean Hyosung Heavy Industries and Chinese Pinggao Group are for the “design, supply and installation as well as operating and maintenance” of the batteries “for a 5-year period.” The utility has not said what exactly each of the contract winners will contribute towards the project, but Hyosung specialises in large-scale energy equipment and renewables, while Pinggao is an electrical and electronic manufacturing company.
Eskom explains that the African Development Bank, New Development Bank, The World Bank, and the Clean Technology Fund (CTF) all helped in co-financing the project. The 500MW BESS (Battery Energy Storage System) project is part of the initiative announced by SA president Cyril Ramaphosa and his government to begin addressing South Africa’s long-running energy crisis. The project will also serve as a proof of concept to show how large scale-storage can be used to address SA’s energy challenges successfully, according to Eskom.
Source: This news is originally published by itnewsafrica