- Eskom Transmission has held a symbolic signing ceremony for the National Transmission Company of South Africa (NTCSA) 101 Transformer Panel contract, which is one of the key initiatives to support a faster and scaled-up roll-out of the Transmission Development Plan (TDP).
- The 101 Panel Transformer contract will be used to procure approximately 34 transformers that are part of the priority program.
- The various companies will compete for various batch orders of transformers.
- The first batch order of 26 transformers is expected to be placed by July 2024 and will enable the delivery of approximately 28,000MW to the grid by the 2028 financial year.
Yesterday, South Africa’s state owned energy utility, Eskom, announced the panel of transformer suppliers who will compete for upcoming transformer contracts to unlock the grid and ensure access to reliable electricity transmission across the country. Over the next 10 years, it is envisaged 101 large-scale and various other sizes of transformers will be required for the infrastructure build rollout.
The contracts are expected to be worth in the region of R7 billion over a period of four years.
Transmission sector status
The country needed to add more than 1500 km of new transmission lines annually over the next ten years. This is to ensure transmission capacity to accommodate more than 50 GW of new generation power which will mainly come from intermittent renewable energy (wind and solar projects). Currently, Eskom’s transmission division is adding 300 km of new power lines annually. In the last ten years, only 4 347 km of new power lines were added.
Along with transmission line capacity, more than 122 600 MVA transformation capacity is needed, representing 77% of Eskom’s current installed base of just over 160 000 MVA. In the last ten years, only 19 060 MVA has been added to the grid infrastructure.
Energy transition
“The aim is to connect 53GW of new generation capacity over the next ten years and to achieve this, innovative project delivery models and partnerships are being explored and implemented to drive accelerated delivery of the Transmission Development Plan (TDP), including a priority programme for strategic projects,” stated Segomoco Scheppers, Eskom’s Managing Director for Transmission.
The National Transmission Company of South Africa (NTCSA) issued an open tender enquiry on the 14th of March 2023 and five suppliers have successfully been selected to manufacture the power transformers to supplement the limited available local supply capacity. Most suppliers are local with an international footprint.
The current schedule requires a first batch of 26 large scale transformers to be delivered between 12 to 36 months from order placement to meet the urgent requirement to increase transmission capacity for customers as well as independent power producers in order to contribute to overall economic growth.
Localisation strategy
The NTCSA has designed a framework agreement to procure the 101 large scale and various other sizes of transformers from the selected suppliers to address the large-scale demand up to the end of the 2028 financial year. The suppliers will compete for various tenders over the coming years and the first batch of 26 power transformers has been issued to the suppliers and is expected to be awarded by July 2024.
The contracting strategy has been designed to allow for efficient procurement processes to maintain and strengthen governance and reduce lead times to adequately deliver on the TDP requirements, promote localisation and enable the delivery of approximately 28GW to the grid by the end of the 2028 Financial Year. The procurement will enable the NTCSA to meet its transformer needs across the country.
Subsequent tenders will encourage increasing local manufacture as the supply chain becomes more established in South Africa. An initiative to accredit more companies both locally and internationally has resulted in the NTCSA already accrediting 22 factories for various classes of transformers.
TDP Priority Programme
The transformer contract includes a list of 34 transformers that form part of two priority programmes to accelerate the delivery of the transmission infrastructure. Firstly, 25 projects at existing substations will provide additional transformers to unlock 13 000MW of new generation capacity. Secondly, 22 expedited transmission projects will unlock 24 000MW of grid connection capacity. In summary, NTCSA is developing 47 projects that have the potential to unlock 37 GW of grid connection capacity between 2025 and 2033. These projects are at different stages of implementation in terms of design, procurement, and construction.
The recently established NTCSA will be undertaking the largest infrastructure rollout programme since the inception of its predecessor, Eskom’s Transmission Division. The commitment is to deliver 170 transformers to bring on board 105 865 MVA transformer capacity and 14 218km of new transmission lines by 2032.
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
Source: NTCSA
