Updated June 2025 – South Africa’s Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) has named five preferred bidders under the third Battery Energy Storage Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (BESIPPPP BW3), awarding a total of 616 MW in storage capacity worth R9.5 billion. Announced by Minister of Electricity and Energy Dr. Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, the projects—located in the Free State Supply Area—were selected from 33 bids submitted since the programme’s launch in March 2024. Mulilo dominated the round with four winning projects (Bloemhoek, Erfdeel, Vanilla, and Retreat BESS), while Norway’s Scatec secured one (Haru BESS). The facilities will provide critical ancillary services such as instantaneous, regulating, and supplemental reserves, enhancing grid reliability as South Africa accelerates large-scale energy storage deployment.
IPP Mulilo which is majority-owned by CIP and the renewable arm of French based EDF, namely EDF Renewables. In August EDF REnewables sold their 1GW Beehive Battery Energy Storage BESS Project in Arizona to CIP an indication of their continued partnership.
January 2024 – A consortium involving Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) and utility EDF has been named preferred bidder for three battery energy storage plant (BESS).
Total capacity
South Africa’s Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) awarded the consortium three BESS projects totaling 257MW/1,028MWh of energy storage out of a total that was given five bids.
Construction cost
The battery energy storage plant are slated to cost ZAR 7 billion US372 million and construction begins mid-reports workers’ union. 15-year PPAs will be signed for the delivery of electricity to the grid controlled by TSO Eskom.
The five projects secured by DMRE are part of a 513MW 2,052 MWh tender that the agency announced in March This year. They will all be located in South African Eskom substations but they’ll not only provide capacity, energy but also services such as Instantaneous Reserves , Regulating Reserves the Ten resesers and Supplemental reserves .
According to the initial tender document, Aggeneis and Mookodi will both have a generation capacity of 77 mega watt while Nieuwehoop is expected to be at 103MW. For the four-hour duration and total capacity, Aggeneis and Mookodi should both be 308MWh while Nieuwehoop will stand at about 412MWh.
IPP Scatec, based in Norway won a 103MW/412 MWh deal recently covered by Energy-Storage.news through the same DMRE procurement while no one has revealed who is going to be winner of the fifth lot.
Robert Helms, partner at CIP, commented: “We applaud the determination of South African authorities to quickly deploy battery energy storage, a technology block with significant importance for Mulilo.”
There was some controversy about what technologies would qualify for the tender specifications in energy storage community with a consultancy declaring that flow batteries would not satisfy it, which eventually dismissed by parent company of vanadium redox flow battery developer.
Eskom and the South African government will rely on energy storage to strengthen grid capacity by means of various procurement programmes for diversifying renewables.
One is the Risk Mitigation IPP Procurement Program (RMIPPPP) for solar and storage, with Saudi company ACWA Power recently winning a project that includes a 1200MhBESS. Scatec commenced construction of one of its won bid projects in December and EDF is also involved in developmental efforts for RMIPPPP.
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