ENGIE (Paris, France, formerly GDF Suez) on May 10th, 2016 announced that the Kathu Solar Park project in South Africa, owned by an ENGIE-led consortium with South African partners, has signed a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Eskom – South Africa’s state owned power utility – making it possible for construction at the site to begin shortly.
The concentrating solar power plant (CSP), situated in the Northern Cape Province, 600 km South-West of the national capital Pretoria, is expected to be operational in the second half of 2018.
Kathu Solar Park is a 100 MW greenfield CSP project with parabolic trough technology and equipped with a molten salt energy storage system that allows 4.5 hours of thermal energy storage and thus limits the intermittent nature of solar energy.
“This is an important milestone for our first Concentrated Solar Power project in the ENGIE Group,” said Bruno Bensasson, CEO of the ENGIE Africa Business Unit.
“The Kathu Solar Park project supports South Africa’s strategy of increasing the contribution of renewable power and also underlines our commitment to be a key partner in achieving sustainable energy generation in Africa.”
The consortium, which is led by ENGIE (48.5%), includes a group of South African investors comprising SIOC Community Development Trust, the Investec bank, Lereko Metier and the Public Investment Corporation.
The CSP project is funded by a mix of debt and equity. The debt is funded from a club of South African banks, namely Rand Merchant Bank, Nedbank Capital, ABSA Capital, Investec and the Development Bank of South Africa.
Kathu Solar Park has been awarded preferred bidder in the third round of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Program (REIPPPP) led by the South African Department of Energy (DOE).
source:http://www.solarserver.com
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