The initial 28 projects selected in December as preferred bidders under South Africa’s renewable energy independent power producer (IPP) programme would facilitate R50-billion-worth of international investment, with more to come from subsequent bidding rounds.

Speaking at the Infrastructure Development Cluster’s post-State of the Nation media briefing on Tuesday the cluster’s chairperson Sibusiso Ndebele said the programme “has lived up to expectations” and that even more tenders were expected when the next bid window closed on March 5.

The initial projects collectively represented 1 416 MW of wind, solar photovoltaic and concentrated solar power capacity.

A further 2 309 MW was yet to be allocated and there were early indications that there would be strong appetite for that remaining allocation during the March round.

Government was hoping for increased competition and Ndebele indicated that it was especially keen to select projects with a high local content. During the second bid period a target of 60% local content would be demanded from certain technologies.

Work was also progressing on a less onerous tender process for smaller renewables technologies. This tender would probably focus primarily on biomass, biogas, landfill gas and small-hydro prospects.