In South Africa, ELB Engineering Services (ELB), KC Cottrell, and the ELB Educational Trust have recently been appointed as engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contractor for a 25 MWe biomass power plant project by Ngodwana Energy, a subsidiary of Sappi Southern Africa, along with KC Africa and African Rainbow Energy and Power.
According to a statement, the consortium will build a 25 MWe biomass power plant adjacent the Sappi Ngodwana Mill in Mpumalanga, South Africa. The plant will use waste wood material recovered from surrounding plantations and screened waste material from the mill production process to generate power that will be fed into the national grid.
A high-efficiency air pollution control system will be installed on the boiler flue gas to ensure that emissions are well below the new requirements. Construction is estimated to begin in August 2018 and is expected to take up to 27 months to complete.
Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme
The project forms part of the government’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPP) signed in April this year. A public procurement programme introduced in March 2011, the REIPPP replaced the Feed-in Tariff (FIT) system introduced in 2009.
Qualifying renewable energy technologies are onshore wind, solar PV, solar thermal, solid biomass, biogas, landfill gas (LFG), and small hydro plants. A ceiling tariff level is established for each technology in the auctions. Winning bidders sign power purchase agreements (PPAs), which are guaranteed for a period of 20 years.
The REIPPP is administrated by the Independent Power Producers Procurement Programme (IPPPP) Office that was jointly set up in 2010 by the South African Department of Energy (DoE), National Treasury (NT) and the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA). In November 2015, IPPPP announced that Ngodwana Energy was a successful bidder in REIPP Large Projects – Bid Window 4.
