This will involve the procurement of approximately 1 164 km of 400 kV lines in the Northern Cape, North West and Gauteng.

The process will be led by the National Transmission Company of SA (NTCSA), which will be the buyer of the key infrastructure as the government ramps up its energy security efforts.

The NTCSA is one of the entities under Eskom’s legal separation process, namely generation, distribution and transmission, announced in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s 2019 state of the nation address.

Ramokgopa says to turn the country into a construction site, create jobs and see economic growth, the private sector has to be roped in to help in the rollout of the 1 164 km of transmission lines.

“We’re going to build 400 KV, that’s the capacity of the lines 400 KV, and of course, there are going to be transformers that are going to support that. What is the length of the transmission that is being announced today is 1 164 kilometers of new transmission lines, and this, like I said, with association transmission, the corridors are going to be in three provinces. It is in the Northern Cape, the NTCSA’s balance sheet is not sufficient to do all the above the sovereign balance sheet is not sufficient. So, we look into the private sector to make this investment also in the North West and Gauteng are going to be the candidates,” says Ramokgopa.

South Africa has a transmission development plan that targets the construction of 14 000 km through public-private partnerships.
 

The Minister says a request for information has been released, emphasising that this will go through a tender process, as he explains how it is expected to work.

“In this instance, transmission infrastructure will be procured by private sector participants, what we call independent transmission providers. So, in the configuration of how this works, the ministry is mandated to procure and the NTCSA is the party that buys what we’ve procured. And this we are going to ensure that we procure it in accordance with the most cost-effective and also tendering procedures that are fair, competitive and also equitable values in line with the constitution of the principles with regard to public procurement.”

He says the plans must also get buy-in from industry roleplayers, push localisation and ensure the creation of jobs.

“It’s one thing to raise the money, but it’s quite another for industry to be ready to participate. What we know is that the industry as haemorrhage skills over a period of time as a result of contraction of the built program in the country, the capacity is not present, the engineers have left, the expertise have left to other parts of the world, so we need to work with industry to build that capacity. And then the second issue that requires conversation is for us to domesticate, if you like, the inputs into this, the building of the wires, the building of the transformers, the building of all the equipment that is associated with this program. Otherwise, we will be exporting job opportunities.”

With the country seeing the challenges around stalled and incomplete infrastructure projects, the minister says all will be done by the book, cautioning that they may have to expropriate land where necessary.

“We are going to be crisscrossing people’s private properties. In remote areas, we’re going to go through people’s farms, and in some instances, for you to get the right of way, it can be a major contestation. We will exhaust what is in the law, and then ultimately, if we don’t agree, then we are going to do expropriation. It is nothing new, so going to do expropriation, and then we will compensate you at the level that we would have determined. I mean, just to give you a sense, there are projects that have been delayed for a period of over three years, as a result of the right of way.”

The process will see seven corridors packaged into various projects set up in the three provinces in a build, operate, own and transfer rollout expected to be completed by 2029.

Ramokgopa says further market insights will be revealed at the SA Transmission Infrastructure investment forum set for Friday, at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

--Reuters--