The second bid window for the procurement of 3 725 MW of renewable energy capacity from independent power producers (IPPs) closed at 18:00 on Monday, with 2 309 MW still available for allocation to developers.

The Department of Energy (DoE) and the National Treasury told Engineering News Online that they were not in a position to immediately tally the number of bids received, nor the combined capacity of the projects submitted.

That information, together with the nature of the technology solutions proposed, would be made available later in the week.

In December, the initial 28 preferred bidders were named along with solar and wind projects collectively representing 1 416 MW of potential capacity. These developers had until June to take their projects to financial close.

As with the initial bid window, which closed on August 3, the second bid window was also expected to attract a significant level of interest – the DoE received 53 bids from which the 28 preferred bidders were selected.

Further bidding rounds were planned for later in 2012 and during 2013, but it was also possible that the full allocation could be subscribed by the end of the current window period. 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.

Government was hoping for increased competition in the second round and was especially keen to select projects with higher local content levels than had been achieved during the earlier round. During the second bid period a target of 60% local content would be demanded from certain technologies.

The bids would be evaluated under six streams, including environmental acceptability, land security, commercial robustness, economic development, financial viability and technical competence.

The legal evaluation would be conducted by Bowman Gilfillan, Edward Nathan Sonnenbergs, Ledwaba Mazwai and Webber Wentzel. The technical evaluation would be conducted by Mott MacDonald, while the financial evaluation would be completed by Ernst & Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The evaluation would be conducted in a secure location in Gauteng, before being handed over to the DoE for confirmation.

Government was currently aiming to procure 1 850 MW of onshore wind, 1 450 MW of solar photovoltaic (PV), 200 MW of concentrated solar power (CSP), 75 MW of small hydro, 25 MW of landfill gas and 12.5 MW apiece of biomass and biogas capacity. These allocations might change should there be undersubscription from some technologies and an oversubscription for others.

Prices had also been capped for each technology. Wind projects would need to be priced at below 115c/kWh, solar PV and CSP at below 285c/kWh, while a cap of 107c/kWh had been set for biomass, 80c/kWh for biogas, 60c/kWh for landfill gas and 103c/kWh for mini hydro.