The government-owned Development Bank of Southern Africa DBSA is in talks with South African ministries to set up an office to manage auctions of power transmission projects, a bank executive told Bloomberg in an interview published on Friday. The bank is discussing with government departments the setting up of the office that is expected to bring private funding to link up renewable energy sources to the transmission grid.
The Independent Power Producer Office has helped the development of utility-scale wind and solar power projects across South Africa. Eskom, the state-owned utility of South Africa, is currently holding talks with the government on ways to attract public and private financing of the equivalent of $21 billion for a major expansion of the power grid to accommodate an expected rise in renewable energy, the company told Bloomberg last month.