Eskom and Hyosung Heavy Industries, one of the appointed service providers for the Eskom Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) project, yesterday marked the beginning of construction of the first energy storage facility under Eskom’s flagship BESS project. The sod-turning ceremony was held at the Elandskop BESS site, located within Msunduzi and Impendle Local Municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal.

Construction will take between seven and twelve months and the batteries on the site will be charged from the main grid via Eskom’s Elandskop substation. The facility will have a capacity of 8 MW, equivalent to 32 MWh of distributed electricity, enough to power a town such as Howick for four hours. Among the notable benefits of the BESS is that it will boost the network during peak hours, thereby reducing the strain on the network during peak hours.

“The beginning of the construction of the Elandskop BESS is a positive development in our efforts to alleviate the pressure on the national electricity grid,” said André de Ruyter, Eskom Group Chief Executive, speaking at the event. “This is a direct response to the urgent need to address South Africa’s long-running electricity crisis by adding more generation capacity, to the grid, and also to strengthen the grid by adding more storage and transforming capacity.”

Elandskop is part of Phase 1 of Eskom’s BESS project, which includes the installation of approximately 199MW additional capacity, with 833MWh storage of distributed battery storage plants at eight Eskom Distribution substation sites throughout the country. This phase also includes about 2MW of solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity.

The cost of the project will be approximately R11 billion and is being funded through concessional loans from the World Bank, African Development Bank and the New Development Bank. The procurement process for this project has been set out by funders and Eskom is in compliance with it and internal governance.

Phase 2 of the project includes the installation of a further 144MW of storage capacity, equivalent to 616MWh at four Eskom Distribution sites and one Transmission site. The solar PV capacity in this phase will be 58MW.

The BESS project will utilise large scale utility batteries with the capacity of 1 440MWh per day and a 60MW PV capacity. It will be one of the largest BESS projects to be developed and implemented in South Africa.

“Eskom has identified distributed storage as an alternative to support renewable energy expansion in South Africa and we have taken the necessary steps to ensure the successful implementation of the BESS project,” said Velaphi Ntuli, Eskom’s General Manager: Distribution, Operations Enablement.

All Phase 1 sites are planned to be commissioned by 30 June 2023 and Phase 2 by December 2024.