South Africa Picks Bids for $3 Billion of Renewable Projects
- Bid round part of plan to add generation capacity, cut outages
- South Africa has had a record number of power cuts this year
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South Africa picked 25 wind- and solar-power projects to be built by private developers, part of a plan to reduce the nation’s reliance on coal for electricity and end rolling blackouts that are curbing economic growth.
The bidders will add 2,583 megawatts of capacity to the grid using clean-energy technologies, Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe told reporters on Thursday. The projects total about 50 billion rand ($3.3 billion) of investment and will create 13,900 job opportunities, he said.