Bokpoort Concentrated Solar Power is a 50 MW concentrated solar power (CSP) project that was selected as the only CSP plant in the second round of the REIPPP. The Bokpoort CSP corporate office is in Johannesburg with the plant itself located 120km south east of Upington, Northern Cape. Bokpoort CSP is structured as an independent power producer with Saudi Arabian based ACWA Power International being the operational partner. Bokpoort CSP is project financed based on a 20 year Power Purchase Agreement with Eskom, supported by government guarantees, with a power tariff indexed with CPI.

The project uses CSP trough technology which currently makes up more than 95% of the installed base of global CSP capacity and has a thermal energy storage capacity of 1300MWh (thermal), equivalent to about 9.5 hours of operation.

The plant draws water from the Orange River through a dedicated pipeline, and operates continuously with a total staff complement of approximately 48, largely employed via a third party operations and maintenance contract. The R5.1 billion project’s construction programme reached COD at the beginning of 2016.