A glimmer of hope illuminates South Africa's energy landscape as major hybrid power projects inch closer to reality. Leading the charge are two new hybrid Renewable Independent Power Producer Programme (REIPPPP) projects, set to debut in 2025.

Bid Window 7 (BW7) was opened in December by the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy for the REIPPP’s 5 000MW project. These innovative schemes combine wind, solar, and battery storage technology on a massive scale.

The first two of these Hybrid Renewable Independent Power Producer Programme projects will unlock dispatchable power in the short term, so that electricity can be generated during peak demand hours, directly addressing the root cause of load shedding in upcoming years.

Niveshen Govender, chief executive of the South African Wind Energy Association, explained, “These systems will showcase the complementary nature of solar PV, which produces power during the day, and wind, which produces most of its power during the morning and evening peak. This, combined with battery storage, means dispatchable power when it’s most needed.”

These debut projects will unlock an additional 203MW of national generation capacity, the majority of which will be produced by wind energy. The first project is based at the Oya Energy Hybrid Facility in Matjiesfontein, Western Cape, and boasts a mighty 128MW capacity, while the second is Umoyilanga Energy, spread across two sites in the Northern and Eastern Cape, which will add another 75MW.

Together, these projects represent a R14.6 billion investment and promise to create nearly 4,000 jobs throughout their construction and operation.

Addressing ongoing criticism, Govender said that BW7 will adopt an approach that takes grid capacity and allocation into account, rather than using a geographically agnostic approach.