Cape Town – Eskom has introduced the Cross-Border Standard Offer Programme (CBSOP) to facilitate short-term energy purchases from cross-border utilities and Independent Power Producers (IPPs).
This programme aims to help alleviate the country’s power grid issues by sourcing an additional 1 000 megawatts for South Africa.
“This gives impetus to South Africa’s efforts to add more megawatts as possible to the national electricity grid and address the issue of load shedding.
“hopes to contract approximately 1 000MW with this programme which will significantly reduce the current capacity constraints,” Eskom said in a statement.
The power utility said the programme is designed to “simplify the procurement of energy from existing and new facilities” in the Southern African Development Community region.
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“The standard offer approach enables Eskom to purchase cross-border energy at an established price calculated at the avoided cost of Eskom’s own generation (including long-term energy purchases from local IPPs).
“It also allows for a predictable tariff, which is adjusted each year based on the regulatory-approved cost recovery mechanism and covers the variable cost of local generation,” Eskom said.
The programme has specific criteria for supply, such as minimum and maximum capacity requirements and contractual terms.
Meanwhile, Eskom has temporarily suspended load shedding due to adequate emergency generation reserves and expected peak demand, with stage 1 load shedding set to resume on Wednesday.
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Compiled by Betha Madhomu
