Source: REVE
South Africa's power generation shortfall problems have been well documented here on CleanTechnica and in other forums. This has led to unprecedented electricity rationing in the country, infamously known as electricity load shedding. South Africa has an electricity generating capacity of about 50,000 MW, dominated by the coal-fired power plants of the national utility Eskom. Many of these coal-fired power plants are quite old now and, therefore, plant breakdowns are quite common, and Eskom also has a large part of its fleet undergoing planned maintenance and other activities to improve the performance of some of these older plants.
South Africa therefore needs new generation capacity as soon as possible. While Eskom is working to improve the performance of some of its plants, as well as working on new power generation plants, a quick way to add some capacity to the mix is through independent power producers through large-scale solar and wind plants. South Africa got off to a good start in this area more than a decade ago with its Renewable Independent Power Producer Program (REIPPP), which aims to bring additional megawatts into the country's electricity system through private sector investment in wind, biomass and small hydro, among others. . Since its inception, REIPPP has successfully added 6280.2 MW to South Africa's energy mix.