Publications
Partners
On Thursday 9 November the Eskom Battery Energy Storage System, Hex BESS, was officially launched in the Breede River Valley.
Although the plant has been operational since its completion earlier this year various role-players and delegates attended a ceremony at the plant on Thursday.
Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan, in his speech, described the move as “history in the making”.
“This is the first of its scale on the African continent,” he said. “If we do more of this across the country we will see the end of load shedding pretty soon. We all know electricity is a prerequisite these days for a decent life for all of us. It is vital for our students for our businesses and for our households. But it’s also important that we understand electricity is indispensable for proper economic growth and inclusive economic growth for people to come and invest in our country and for job creation as well. Our is that we must have enough electricity for what we call energy security. There must be a reserve.”
Monde Bala, Eskom’s Group Executive for Distribution, said Eskom is on a journey to redefine electric future.
“Eskom has embarked on a journey to redefine for a better electric future,” he said in his address. “In this journey Eskom will continue to play a key role in aiding South Africa to find a balance between energy reliability, energy affordability and sustainability.
“The Hex BESS is the first project to be completed under Eskom’s flagship BESS project announced in July 2022 to help to alleviate the pressure on the national electricity grid.” The BESS project serves as a direct response to address the urgent need of South Africa’s perpetual electricity crisis by adding more generation capacity to the grid.
It will also strengthen the grid by adding more storage and transforming capacity while diversifying the existing generation energy mix. The Hex BESS is equipped with large scale utility batteries with the capacity of 1 440 MWh per day and a 60 MW PV capacity.”
According to a press statement the Hex site is designed to store 100 MWh of energy.
“This is sufficient to power a town the size of Mossel Bay for about five hours,” it pointed out. “It is part of Phase 1 of Eskom’s BESS project which includes the installation of approximately 199 MW additional capacity, with 833 MWh storage of distributed battery storage plants at eight Eskom Distribution substation sites around the country in KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape, Western Cape and Northern Cape. This phase also includes about 2MW of solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity.”
Bala said the project is a demonstration of how partnerships can fins solutions.
“The Hex project is a clear demonstration of how public-private partnership can find alternative, innovative and lasting solutions to address the country’s electricity challenges.”
Several of the speakers indicated that more of these plants will be built in phases, including Eskom General Manager: Distribution, Operations Enablement Velaphi Ntuli in a press statement.
“We are pioneering the implementation of the BESS technology, serving as a large-scale commercial project to validate the technology’s feasibility and benefits. The successful implementation will pave the way for wider adoption and possible export of the technology to other regions beyond the borders of South Africa.”
