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Juwi Renewable Energies w w w . j u w i . c o . z a

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subsidiary of the German juwi group, juwi Renewable Energies has been present in South Africa since it first became involved with the early stages of the country’s popular renewable energy independent power producer procurement (REIPPP) initiative. Off the back of several successful Round One bids, juwi established an office in early 2011 and has been building on its reputation ever since. “juwi, as a leading solar PV (photovoltaic) EPC company, tracks market developments globally. When the first REIPP RFP was announced, juwi sent a team out here to participate. This landed us with four Round One projects of the REIPPP,” says managing director Greg Austin. “So

Juwi Renewable Energies plans, constructs and operates renewable energy plants across South Africa, with a particular focus on wind and solar energy. Here, we take a look into the company’s recent growth and involvement in the REIPPP (Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement) programme.

we’ve only really been in South Africa for about four years.“ The solar side of the business has two core focuses, Austin tells us, which can effectively be broken down into utility-scale projects and commercial- and industrialscale projects. For internal purposes, and to allow for better allocation of resources, Juwi draws a line somewhere around 5MW for the utility projects, which generally tend to be part of the REIPPP programme. But demand for larger private offtake systems is also growing. The commercial and industrial projects, on the other hand, typically cater to private sector clients with suitably sized energy demands and premises with sufficiently sized rooftops or unused land to accommodate a PV plant. “Towards the end of 2013, as the outcome of an internal strategy process, we identified the coming opportunity on the commercial and industrial side of things, which we understood to be about to take off in South Africa,” explains Austin.

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“We consequently invested in resources — people, facilities and tools — in order to accelerate sales and the sales support side of things in the C&I space. It’s quick turnaround we’ve invested in, with ongoing technical support from our colleagues in Germany. So while it’s a relatively new and therefore relatively small area for us, we expect that in five years it will be a substantial minority component of our overall solar business.” On the commercial and industrial side, juwi has just finished a

580kWp (kilowatt-peak) project for the CSIR (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research) campus in Pretoria. It’s a ground-breaking project that provides the CSIR Pretoria campus with electricity at a levelised cost of ZAR0.83 per kWh, even at that relatively small scale, says Austin, and will be launched in the next couple of months as part of the CSIR’S 70th anniversary celebration.

month, and the company is also busy with the construction of the large 86MWp Prieska project, owned by French company Sonnedix with whom juwi also works with in Japan, the US and the UK. Prieska is due for completion by Q3 of 2016. The trenching and cable-laying stage is complete, which means it’s now time for the part Austin finds most interesting.

Meanwhile, the REIPPP is keeping juwi busy as well. One commissioned project reached commercial operation this

“We’re beginning the integration of various elements, which will now be our default mode for the rest of the project. We now have

On the commercial and industrial side, we’d like to think that we’re at the cutting edge of a boom of the uptake of private renewables at scale

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Greg Austin, Managing Director

the PV racking system, cables and inverter foundations going in, so it’s the civil, mechanical and electrical components that are now being built simultaneously on-site. Given the scale of the project (105 hectares), it’s quite an exciting and challenging time, as we have to be everywhere at the same time,” he tells us. While there’s plenty to occupy juwi in the present, the company has an impressive number of projects in the pipeline, too. The submission date for the next

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round of the REIPPP is at the beginning of October, and juwi is considerably well prepared. “We’re currently in the Expedited Round of the REIPPP programme, and we’re putting in a range of bids there for selected partners, for typically 75MW AC PV projects,” says Austin. “The REIPPP process has proven to be exceptionally robust. It’s probably the best managed, designed and implemented renewables program in the world, and we have a lot of certainty

The REIPPP process has proven to be exceptionally robust. It’s probably the best managed, designed and implemented renewables program i-n the world, and we have a lot of certainty in it.

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This past week has seen the additional 6.3 GW gazetted by the government of South Africa.

in it. When the announcements were made for Round Four’s preferred bidder projects, there was a simultaneous announcement from the Minister of Energy to the effect that now the first allocation of 6.7GW of renewables had been procured, there was going to be a request to the energy regulator for an additional 6.3 GW. So I think that’s given a lot of confidence to global investors and developers.”

Juwi is also hoping to sign a number of 1MW-scale rooftop projects within the coming months, and is “exceptionally busy” on the PV side of things. All in all, the year to come looks to be full of opportunity for the renewables firm. “On the commercial and industrial side, we’d like to think that we’re at the cutting edge of a boom of the uptake of private renewables at scale. If you look at analyses done on the projected uptake of PV in South Africa by 2030, the procurement in the private sector is expected to be much larger than in the public sector,” he explains. “That’s quite exciting.”

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juwi Renewable Energies 24th Floor · Metropolitan Centre 7 Walter Sisulu Avenue · Foreshore Cape Town · 8001 · South Africa Tel. +27. (0)21. 831 6100 Fax. +27. (0)21. 831 6199