How big is Bess in Africa compared to global projections?

Confirmed development of BESS across the continent is still small compared to global projections, less than 0.5% of the global BESS capacity of 358GW by 2030. Considering Africa’s rapidly growing power requirements and the already planned contributions from VRE, these commitments do not fully reflect the potential for BESS on the continent.

Is Bess an emerging technology?

Because of its relatively recent inclusion in power systems, most international electricity markets consider BESS an emerging technology, despite some technologies already being commercially established and successful. Experience in the African context is even more limited with very few grid-scale BESS projects that are operational.

What is Bess & why is it important?

The study notes that BESS will contribute “crucially to the new and evolving grid paradigm and system requirements, offering increased reliability, resilience, grid modernisation and flexibility for the integration of a diverse and distributed generation portfolio connected to diverse energy users”.

Is Bess a generation asset or a transmission asset?

BESS has most commonly been the CMP and AfSEM, ensuring BESS classified as a generation asset, although it capacity is developed and can be utilised for the benefit of the broader power system. is sometimes also treated as a consumer and potentially a transmission asset. Each of these definitions are too narrow for the versatility offered by BESS.

What are the challenges faced by Bess projects?

In addition to the above, BESS projects are also subject to the hurdles common to infrastructure investment on the continent. These include high cost of capital, financial constraints of off-takers (local utilities and consumers) and construction and operating risks in some jurisdictions. consumer and a generator of electricity.

Which technology is best suited for a grid-scale Bess deployment?

Among the commercial technologies, lithium-ion batteries are best known. They have been the dominant technology for grid-scale applications, representing almost 60% of global grid-scale BESS deployments in 2021.