Eskom’s tender to develop a 17 MW solar power plant at the Duvha Power Station site is moving into its final stage, with bids due by January 30, 2026. The call for tenders, launched on December 15, 2025 and reported by local media on Monday, January 19, concerns a project located in Mpumalanga province in northeastern South Africa.

Under the tender, Eskom is looking for a contractor to handle the design, construction, and commissioning of the solar facility, as well as its operation and maintenance for two years after it comes online. Tender documents show that the project will be built on around 35 hectares within the existing Duvha coal power station site.

Eskom said the grid connection infrastructure will be sized to allow a maximum theoretical evacuation capacity of up to 30 MW. As an indication, a solar plant of this scale can typically generate between 35 and 40 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year, based on standard industry estimates. The electricity produced will be fed into Eskom’s national grid.

Duvha Power Station is a coal-fired facility with a nominal capacity of about 3,600 MW, commissioned between 1980 and 1985, and located in Mpumalanga. Beyond Duvha, Eskom has launched several similar solar tenders on existing or repurposed power generation sites, including Komati, Arnot, and Camden.

At the national level, South Africa’s installed solar capacity exceeded 7 GW at the end of 2024, with around 2 GW of new capacity added during the year, according to data from the South African Photovoltaic Industry Association (SAPVIA).

Abdel-Latif Boureima