The Civil Engineering Contractor February 2019 | Page 10

CONSULTANTS
IRP: gas should make
some space for CSP
Project: Bokpoort
Client: Sener
Northern Cape
The finalisation of South Africa’s Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) will
unlock further investment in renewable energy, but the exclusion
of new concentrated solar power (CSP) projects from the country’s
future energy mix may have serious unintended consequences. This is
the opinion of Siyabonga Mbanjwa, regional MD of global engineering
and construction group Sener. Sener has designed and constructed the
50MW Bokpoort CSP plant near Groblershoop in the Northern Cape.
Bokpoort has more than nine hours’ worth of energy storage capacity,
which means it can provide electricity day and night during spring and
summer and during daily peak periods in autumn and winter. The plant
has been in operation for almost three years. Sener’s 100MW Kathu
CSP project, also in the Northern Cape, was synchronised to the grid
last month and its 100MW Ilanga CSP project situated near Upington
went into commercial operation recently. Both of these plants have
five hours’ worth of energy storage, which means they can support the
electricity supply during daily peak demand periods.
The draft IRP was based on the least-cost scenario, but allowed for
certain policy interventions, including the possibility that excluded
technologies could replace the gas, wind, and PV allocations if they
provide “similar technical characteristics at similar or less cost”.
Mbanjwa proposes a policy intervention to provide for at least 1 050
of additional CSP and says government could procure this with an
“aggressive but realistic price cap”. While he would not put a number
to the proposed cap, he said the cap in the Department of Energy’s bid,
round 4.5 in November 2015, was R1.37 per kilowatt hour (kWh),
with at least one project coming in at R1.11/kWh. Since then, prices
have dropped further — and when bid window 5 is announced after
the finalisation of the IRP CSP, prices should be well below the price of
Eskom’s new Medupi and Kusile coal-fired power stations. nn
Solar energy holds the potential to power South Africa.
8 | CEC February 2019
Location:
Sections of the N4 will be under maintenance.
N4 road maintenance
Project:
Road, infrastructure
Client: Sanral
Location: Gauteng
Sanral has invited tenders for the provision of
consulting engineering services for the routine
road maintenance of national route N4 section
1, N4 section 11 & 12, N1 section 21, R21
section 2, and R104 sections 1 & 2 (Tshwane
Freeway RRM). This project is in the province
of Gauteng and in the Tshwane Metropolitan
Municipality and the approximate programme
is for design and construction documentation
to be completed by July 2019, followed by
supervision of 36 months, commencing 1
February 2020.
A compulsory tenderer’s clarification meeting
with representatives of Sanral took place at
Menlo Park, Pretoria, on 10 January 2019, with
at least one technical competent person of the
tenderer required to attend the clarification
meeting. Preferences are offered to tenderers
who comply with the criteria stated in the
tender data. Only tenderers with a B-BBEE
contributor status level of 1,2,3,4 are eligible
to tender and must be a joint venture between
a Generic Enterprise and EME or QSE. nn
www.civilsonline.co.za