Government has signalled a possible shift in the procurement of new electricity generation in South Africa with plans to move away from the traditional stop-start bid window approach towards a more predictable procurement cadence.
Addressing Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Electricity and Energy on February 5, Electricity and Energy Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said the country is “likely to move away from the bid window exercise” in order to improve certainty about the timing and scale of future power projects.
The bid window system has underpinned South Africa’s renewable energy procurement for more than a decade. Ramokgopa indicated that government now wants a model that offers clearer forward visibility of the project pipeline.
The goal is to ensure “certainty with regard to procurement” so that private-sector investment can be catalysed and greater certainty created about future projects, he said.
Towards greater procurement certainty
Ramokgopa said a revised procurement cadence is being aligned with the work of the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition with focus on strengthening localisation and ensuring that domestic industry benefits from the next phase of power sector investment.
“It’s not our intention to export the job opportunities that will come as a result of this massive investment programme,” he said, adding that government has drawn lessons from earlier bid windows on how to better support local industrial participation.
