Image: Den Harrson, Unsplash

South Africa’s Eskom has kicked off a tender for the engineering, procurement and construction of a 72 MW solar project. The tender details state that the project will be built at the Komati Power Station in Mpumalanga province, eastern South Africa.

The chosen contractor will enter into a three-year turnkey contract, to be funded by financing received from the World Bank. It will consist of 18 months for the design, procurement, supply, testing and commissioning of the solar facility, followed by a further 18 months of operations and maintenance services.

The utility will hold an online, pre-application meeting on Aug. 14. The deadline to submit expressions of interest, which must be submitted by post, is Sept. 30. A request for proposals is scheduled to take place in November.

Eskom’s latest tender follows an opportunity to pilot a green hydrogen facility at its research unit in Johannesburg, which ran from May to June.

Earlier this month, the South African government approved six solar projects totaling almost 1.3 GW in capacity under the seventh bid window of its renewables procurement scheme.

South Africa deployed 1.1 GW of solar in 2024, following a record year for solar additions in 2023. It has set a target of adding at least 3 GW of new renewables per year, increasing to 5 GW by 2030.