Eskom gearing up for big grid-scale battery storage roll-out

State-owned electricity utility Eskom is preparing to roll-out battery energy storage systems (BESS) across multiple sites as part of a replacement plan for the 100 MW Kiwano concentrated solar power (CSP) project initially approved as part of the $3.75-billion World Bank loan extended to the group in 2010. Speaking at the SA Energy Storage 2018 conference in Johannesburg on Monday, Cigre Southern Africa’s Prince Moyo, who is also an Eskom GM, confirmed that the scale of the BESS project is aligned with Kiwano’s assumed daily production rate of 1 440 MWh, or 525 GWh a year.