The Rooipunt Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) Project located in the Northern Cape Province is a 150 megawatt solar thermal power station incorporating 12 hours of full load storage (1,800 megawatts-hours). Rooipunt will deliver about 730 gigawatt-hours of power annually – providing fully dispatchable baseload electricity to the network when electricity is needed most. Storage will enable the solar thermal station to operate just like a conventional coal, gas or nuclear power station, reliably generating electricity day and night – except without any emissions. The Rooipunt project was developed in response to the South Africa Department of Energy’s Expedited Round (referred to as Round 4.5) call for CSP projects for the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP).
In addition to helping South Africa meet its electricity needs with zero-emissions power that is available around the clock, the Rooipunt project will bring long lasting economic benefits to the region. The project is expected to create up to 6,000 direct, indirect and induced jobs during construction, the majority of which will be in South Africa, and around 75 long-term jobs during the operations phase. During the construction period, more than 45% of capital costs will be spent on South African content. The project will have over 20% of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) shareholding, and a percentage of total project revenues will be set aside for enterprise and socioeconomic development which will be invested for the benefit of local communities each year.