South Africa has put out its first request for proposal (RFP) for 3,740 MW of renewable energy. The tender, released under the Integrated Renewable Energy and Resource Efficiency Programme (IREREP), is an effort to modernize the country’s energy distribution and address years of energy instability that has led to daily but unpredictable power cuts.
Eskom, South Africa’s state energy utility, has faced severe capacity constraints due to ageing coal power plants, leading to load-shedding to prevent the system overloading. The renewables energy tender, the largest programme of its kind in Africa, aims to alleviate power supply challenges and reduce load-shedding by three or four stages. The potential benefits from the IREREP include the addition of R$1.3tn to South Africa’s GDP, the creation of over 13,100 small businesses, and a reduction in CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions by over 54.5 megatons.
The IREREP aims to procure renewable energy solutions from private sector energy service companies to meet sustainability targets for the government and South Africa as a whole.
 aims to procure renewable energy solutions from private sector energy service companies to meet sustainability targets for the government and South Africa as a whole.){kind=link}