It’s not all doom and gloom now from Eskom for the Breede Valley region. The latest news from Bess, Eskom’s Battery Energy Storage System project in Worcester, is what residents, industries, and the commercial sector in general, have long been waiting to hear. Bess is about to be all systems go to the local grid by the end of this month.
Reporting on the progress at the Hex Bess substation, media spokesperson Kyle Cookson said: “We are heading to mechanical completion and will soon commence with commissioning. This means that the mechanical installation of the equipment is done and all the necessary testing to ensure operational and safety requirements are met, will be done. We aim to complete this during July and should, by the end of the month, be able to store and dispatch energy from the Bess plant.
“The Hex Bess plant is required to deliver a generation of 20 MW for a five-hour duration. It will be charged during national low load periods and store the energy to be discharged at a later time to provide electricity or other national grid services when needed. The plant is connected via the local grid and will be able to service the local requirements first. Any excess capacity will then be exported to the rest of the national grid,” said Cookson.
