Rooikat and Meerkat Hydropower

Meerkat and Rooikat Hydropower

Meerkat and Rooikat Hydropower is a dispatchable renewable energy project on the Orange River in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa.

The project involves the financing, construction, operation and maintenance of Small Hydro Facilities of <=40MW contracted capacity each.

The project companies have secured tenure over the project sites through long term leases, and over the submersion land through Submersion Servitudes in accordance with the National Water Act No 36 of 1998. Accordingly, unconditional options to enter leases and servitudes have been concluded.

VALUE:

R3 Billion

DESCRIPTION:

280GWh per annum

STATUS:

In development

RELATED SUBSIDIARY:

Tewa Power

Project Capacity

The Facilities each include a ≈40m Concrete Gravity dam wall which will create the generation head as well as a storage reservoir of approximately 40 million m3. The projects will have similar capacities, with the proposed electricity generation capacity comprising 6MW baseload capacity (corresponding with the flow in the Orange River which is met or exceeded >95% of the time) + 34MW mid-merit dispatchable capacity.

Dispatchable Energy

The storage in the reservoirs combined with the prevailing hydrology enable the Projects to operate in a dispatchable fashion. The Projects are unique amongst renewable energy IPP projects – they can produce dispatchable mid-merit renewable output. The International Renewable Energy Agency states that hydropower technology can provide the services “required for the high penetration of variable self-dispatch renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar”.