South Africa’s electricity utility Eskom is aiming to contract for 1 000 MW of additional electricity imports from it regional neighbours using a cross-border standard offer programme (CBSOP), which was formally launched on October 18.

The programme, Eskom says, is designed to simplify the procurement of energy from existing and new facilities in the region.

Under the CBSOP, Eskom will seek to sign up short-term energy purchases from utilities and independent power producers (IPPs) in neighbouring countries in an effort to help tackle loadshedding.

Eskom says that through the standard offer it will buy electricity at an established price, calculated based on the avoided cost of Eskom’s own generation, including long-term energy purchases from local IPPs.

Fixed high- and low-season CBSOP rates for peak, standard and off-peak periods have been published for the 2024 financial year, which continues until March 31, 2024.

The peak high-season rate in R3 638.90/MWh and the low-season rate is R1510.14/MWh, while the standard high-season rate is R909.73/MWh and the low-season rate R849.08/MWh.

The off-peak rate is R606.48/MWh across both seasons.

Eskom says the CBSOP offers a predictable tariff, which is adjusted each year based on the regulatory-approved cost recovery mechanism and covers the variable cost of local generation.

Earlier, Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa announced that Eskom has signed up 1 100 MW under the standard offer that had been made available to domestic companies with surplus electricity available to sell into the loadshedding-afflicted grid.

The local standard offer was launched in September 2022.

Through the domestic standard offer programme Eskom is able to buy power at a set price from existing electricity producers with capacities of above 1 MW.