South Africa’s state owned electricity utility Eskom has awarded Spanish Technology Group Abengoa contract worth US $25m for the construction of two 400 kV transmission lines which are 174 km.
According to Abengoa who are also constructing a large scale concentrated solar power (CSP) in the Northern Cape, this contract would represent the first power transmission contract that they have done in South Africa.
Abengoa will be responsible for the engineering, design, construction and commissioning of the two power lines which will be constructed from the Medupi substation located in Lephalale region to Borutho substation located in Mokopane region of Limpopo.
Construction work on the 4 764 MW Medupi coal-fired power station located in Lephalale has been going on since 2007 by Eskom with its first 794MW unit being commercialized recently.
The project also has other five units which were over budgeted and are behind construction schedule. However, this is being worked on and they are expected to worked on in stages between 2017 and 2019.
Abengoa further noted that the contract from Eskom also consolidated its presence in power transmission in South Africa with other projects such as the 50 MW Khi and 100 MW Xina CSP plants currently under construction while the 100MW Kaxu CSP was in production.
