SOUTH AFRICA – Sasol, an energy and chemicals company, has kicked off a request for proposals (RFP) process to seek independent power producers for two embedded 10MW solar photo-voltaic (PV) plants.
The company said bidders had until October to submit bids for the development of the two PV facilities one in Secunda, Mpumalanga, and another in Sasolburg, Free State province.
“We are excited to launch the RFP, which forms part of our broader Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission reduction aspiration and moves us forward on our journey to achieving our target of a 10percent GHG emission reduction by 2030,” Sasol chief sustainability officer, Hermann Wenhold, said.
In May, Sasol invited the bidders to participate in a Request for Information process for the supply of renewable energy to its South African operations.
The company said at the time that it had commissioned independent power producers (IPPs) to supply 600 megawatts (MW) of renewable electricity capacity to help it meet its target of GHG emissions by around 1.6 million tons a year.
“The RFPs for the development of the two embedded 10MW solar PV facilities at Sasol’s Secunda and Sasolburg operations come at the back of that, and are a first step towards Sasol realising its commitment and objective to eventually procure 600MW of renewable energy capacity,” said Sasol.
The successful bidders were expected to design, finance, construct, operate, maintain and own the solar PV facilities and their associated connection infrastructure to supply 10MW of power to each of Sasol’s operations at their own cost.
The successful bidders would supply electricity from the solar PV facilities as IPPs to Sasol as part of a long-term power purchase agreement.
Sasol’s climate change response comes as being sustainable. It has increasingly become a priority for management and shareholders.
Environmental lobby group, the Centre of Environmental Rights (CER), said in a report that Eskom burnt about two-thirds of all coal used in South Africa in its coal-fired power stations, while Sasol Synfuels used about one-fifth. In April, Environmental Forestry and Fisheries Minister, Barbara Creecy, ordered her department to disclose GHG emission data and GHG emissions reduction plans of South Africa’s heavy polluters.
Creecy upheld the appeal lodged by the CER against the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries’ refusal to disclose key GHG emission data and GHG emissions reduction plans for 16 heavy polluters, including Sasol.
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