South Africa: REIPPP wrestles with grid issue

The Department of Energy’s Independent Power Producer (IPP) office has been working hard to resolve issues with connecting renewable IPPs to the grid and monitoring their economic development commitments, influential National Treasury senior project adviser Karen Breytenbach told the South African National Energy Association earlier this month. Grid connection is the primary obstacle to closing the projects of preferred bidders from the third round of the renewable energy IPP procurement programme (REIPPP3), and is likely to re-emerge as a problem for REIPPP4.