The International Company for Water and Power Projects (ACWA Power) has announced that it will soon begin the construction of a 100 MW solar project in South Africa.

An agreement to the effect has been signed between the Central Energy Fund of South Africa and ACWA Power, a leading Saudi Arabian developer, owner, and operator of power generation and water desalination plants.

Under the agreement, both the entities will co-invest in renewable energy projects the first of which will be the 100 MW Redstone concentrated solar power project in the country’s Northern Cape Province.

According to ACWA Power, the project which will go into construction later this year and will feature solar storage technology that will allow solar energy to be utilized to generate electricity not only when the sun is shining but also through the night. This technology will help in cumulatively dispatching 480,000 MWh/year.

This solar project will use a central salt receiver technology with 12 hours of thermal storage. This, in turn, will allow the project to generate during the evening peak demand periods. Moreover, while PV or wind cannot serve the evening peak unless they are linked with utility scale batteries which are extremely expensive, this CSP Central Tower solution will generate cost competitively more than double the MWh output of electrical energy per the rated MW capacity.

The solar project, once completed, will supply power to over 210,000 South African homes even during evening peak demand periods once operational.

Recently, the Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia has acquired a 15.2 percent stake in International Company for Water and Power Projects (ACWA Power), a developer, owner, and operator of power generation and water desalination plants. PIF and ACWA Power jointly announced the acquisition.

In February 2018, ACWA Power bagged the power purchase contract for a period of 25 years at a new world record tariff of 8.781 halalas (~$0.234)/kWh to develop the 300 MW Sakaka project in the Kingdom.