Zuko Komisa

Eskom and Agence Française de Développement (AFD) have signed a R125 million grant agreement to support the development of the power utility’s Tubatse Pumped Storage System project.
The Infrastructure South Africa Program has designated the hydro storage system project, which is situated in the Elias Motsoaledi Local Municipality in Limpopo, as a top priority project. The power utility described the Tubatse Pumped Hydro Storage System as a “mega installation with a power generation capacity of 1.5 GW” with a storage capacity of 21 GWh.
Eskom plans to develop the Tubatse PSS project as a Public-Private Partnership and will intend to procure the services of a Transaction Advisor to conduct a thorough Private Sector Participation feasibility study and business case in the first quarter of 2026.
The funding would give South Africa and the power company another means to reach its low carbon economy targets, according to Eskom Group Chief Executive (GCE), Dan Marokane.
“Without large-scale facilities such as Tubatse, the management of intermittent power from renewable energy–wind and PV [photovoltaic] –would be very difficult without the kind of intervention that pump storage systems offer,” he said on Thursday.
“Over the next three years we have an ambition to execute at least 2GW of these projects. The clean energy projects will consist of a diversified capacity mix of renewable energy solar PV and wind, hydro, gas, nuclear and pump storage,” Marokane said.
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