- On 8 December 2022, South Africa’s Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, Minister Mantashe announced five Preferred Bidders with projects totalling 860MW were appointed under the 6th Bid Window of the REIPPPP.
- The bid window was released in April 2022, and 56 bid submissions were received on 3rd October 2022.
- More recently, they have approved a 6th preferred bidder with a 140MW solar project at a tariff of R0.548c p/kWh.
At the time Mantashe announced that an eligible 6th bidder has also been identified, and the Department is in discussion with the potential bidder on conditions for appointment, in order to fill the remaining gap up to 1000MW. This mystery bidder was not listed in the DMRE’s list of ‘eligible’ bidders published on the DMRE website on 13 December 2022 which included two projects namely; the Ngonyama Solar PV (240MW) and Alldays SEF Solar (75MW).
The five announced Preferred Bidders were listed as follows: 
Image credit: DMRE
On 20 March 2023, the DMRE without a formal press release, published an updated list of preferred bidders in REIPPPP Bid Window 6 (Additional). The list now includes the Ngonyama Solar PV (140MW) as a 6th preferred bidder.
Image credit: DMRE
The Ngonyama project was previously part of the “29 Solar Development” cluster. According to the CSIR, who were commissioned to do the environmental impact assessment (EIA) in 2015, 29 Solar (Pty) Ltd (Reg. No. 2015/002969/07) proposed to construct and operate five 100 megawatt (MW) solar photovoltaic (PV) facilities and associated electrical infrastructure over nine farms close to Dealesville, in the Free State province. The five projects and associated infrastructure are collectively referred to as the 29 Solar Dealesville Development and is situated approximately 50 km south-east of Boshof and approximately 70 km north-east of Bloemfontein. The five proposed PV facilities and associated electrical infrastructure were granted Environmental Authorisation by the National Department of Environmental Affairs On 05 September 2016.
No wind projects awarded in REIPPPP Bid Window 6
The Department received Onshore Wind bid responses amounting to 4 116 MW for the Bid Window 6, all of which are located in the Eastern Cape and Western Cape supply areas. Following the confirmation from Eskom during the evaluation that no grid capacity was available to connect any proposed Onshore Wind projects in these supply areas, the Department could unfortunately not award any of the wind projects up to the allocated 3 200 MW under the bid window.
Related news: South Africa’s REIPPPP is in tatters while energy crisis deepens, Mantashe must be held accountable
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
9 Comments
Seems a friend got a helping hand here
Seems like that’s business of the day with our politicians….
How many shares has Mantashe have in the car ships? “
Bidders must be vetted to authenticate capacity and capabilities. Relationship checks is of vital importance to curb monopolizing state resources by Ministers and their Associates. The move will eradicate corruption, and will ensure that people granted the bids do have the expertise in the bid issued. South African citizens are sick and tired of people who steal from tax payers by executing dodgy jobs at inflated prices.
Why is a bid to build an additional power line to Cape Town from the proposed wind farm ( now no longer planned) due to lack of grid capacity, not included in the bid window.. Supplying Cape Town directly will reduce CapeTown’s demand on the national grid thus making capacity available elsewhere.
Mantashe and the political “know all’s” need to be ” load shed” and let the engineers get on doing what they are trained to do.
Ensuring looting continues by ministers!
Follow the money…. bet all have shares somewhere through family and friends in companies awarded
Deals and more deals,all funny deals!!Look who’s in charge!!We doomed with this lot.
Mantashe is poison to the South Africa 🇿🇦 economy, why this dumb twit is still around is beyond any reasoning.
Do these politicians read the news…. No they don’t…. Only their bank balances. What about the next generation of born frees…..