Johannesburg - A unique private energy company, unveiled in Johannesburg on Wednesday night, is expected to produce a massive 16 GW of energy generation capacity projects in Southern Africa by 2025, its founders said.
Cennergi, a joint venture between South Africa's mining group Exxaro and India's largest private power utility Tata Power, already runs five renewables projects situated in the Northern Cape, Limpopo and Eastern and Western Cape.
The new 50:50 partnership would particularly be targeting the expanding energy markets in South Africa, Namibia and Botswana.
Cennergi CEO Thomas Garner told guests who attended the launch on Wednesday that the company has already submitted solar and wind bids for the second bidding round under South Africa's renewable energy Independent Power Producer (IPP) procurement programme, which closed on 5 March.
Its focus would be on the investigation of feasibility, development, ownership, operation, maintenance, acquisition and management of power generation projects.
Exxaro head Sipho Nkosi was, however, quick to point out that Cennergi was in no way going to be Eskom's competition. In fact, the company will be looking at the possibility of partnering with Eskom.
"Eskom provides base [power] for this country and for other countries as well. They have this incredible immense knowledge in so far as power is concerned and we would like to congratulate them," Nkosi said.
He said the idea by Exxaro, one of South Africa's leading coal producers and Eskom's number one supplier, to venture into energy has been in the pipeline for the past two years.
"We felt that as coal producers in South Africa, we start immersing ourselves in renewable energies because we need to continue to be responsible corporate citizens in South Africa. The whole continent of Africa is well endowed with renewable energy and ... these are the organisations that can harness these opportunities."
Tata Power MD Anil Sardana said the demand for energy in Southern Africa necessitated that there should be more than one player in the sector. Given that, arduous challenges to meet all the energy needs remain.
"Therefore, it's important for people to bring all the inputs together, not just to contribute to the space but do it effectively," he said, adding that Tata Power currently serves more than 1.7 million customers in Delhi and Mumbai.
South Africa's Integrated Resource Plan for the energy sector envisages 3 725 MW of renewables capacity to be introduced in the country over the coming few years.
Kevin Nassiep from the Department of Energy, who delivered a speech on behalf of Energy Minister Dipuo Peters, described the project as responsive to South Africa's energy needs, particularly in the renewable sector.
"Initiatives such as this one are therefore well poised to accelerate the development of our electricity sector and will propel our green energy revolution to a new level," Nassiep said.
He said it was not a coincidence that South Africa was moving with speed in greening its economy, considering that the country had just introduced the New Growth Path, which seeks to deliver five million new jobs by 2020.
The Industrial Policy Action Plan and the signing of the new local procurement accord last year were testimony to government's seriousness to boost industry investments in South Africa, he said.
