BPC, Eskom sign new power import deal
Brian Benza | Thursday April 6, 2017 18:27
BPC spokesperson, Dineo Seleke yesterday told Mmegi Business that the new deal replaces the one that expired in December 2015.
“The corporation is currently undertaking remediation of Morupule B and refurbishment of Morupule A, which is expected to be finalised on December 2017. Since we have not tried and tested these, BPC has been proactive to sign the agreement with Eskom to ensure secure and continued power supply in the event the plants experience teething issues after completion of ongoing projects,” she said.
National power demand currently stands at 450MW with only 74MW coming from imports.
Morupule B is currently producing 260MW with supply complemented by local backup diesel generators producing 269MW.
According to Seleke, the power utility expects that by end of April 2017 Morupule B should be producing 390MW while at the end of May 2017 generation at the plant should have risen to 520MW.
“Morupule B is not operating on full load as we are currently undertaking some maintenance of Units 2 and 4. Despite this state, the country’s electricity demand is being met and there is no planned loadshedding,” she said.
The new deal was signed last Friday by Eskom’s interim group chief executive, Matshela Koko and his BPC counterpart Stefan Schwarzfischer where the two also discussed other areas of potential co-operation.
“The conclusion of this agreement serves to demonstrate our commitment to the SADC region to provide energy security and certainty with regard to long-term supply of energy. Eskom reaffirms its position that we are ‘open for business’ and stand ready to undertake further long-term supply agreements, for up to 10 years, with our various trading partners,” Koko said.
Schwarzfischer said: “This new firm power agreement offers BPC improved security of supply and presents us with a window of opportunity to tackle some of the major challenges facing our generation plant. We look forward to further collaboration with Eskom to further improve our energy and various technical aspects of the electricity business.”
Eskom, which currently has over 4,000MW in excess capacity said this was the second power sales agreement that they had signed in just over a week, having recently concluded a five-year power sales agreement with the Namibian national power utility, NamPower.
Botswana is set to become a net power exporter in the next three years when three projects that are currently underway are completed.
Apart from the remedial words at Morupule B and refurbishment of Morupule A, groundwork to expand the former to 900MW has already started after a tender for construction of another two units (Unit 5 and 6) was awarded to a joint venture between Japanese, Marubeni and South Korea’s Posco Energy.