The 600MW MEIPP will be developed as an integrated mine and power station.
Mabesekwa Power Plant
The MEIPP project is being developed to supply electricity to South Africa under the South African Coal Baseload IPP Programme for Cross-Border Projects. As a parallel bid submission, the project is also shortlisted in the Government of Botswana Greenfield Coal Baseload IPP Programme.
The project is a coal-based mine-mouth power plant at a 1 billion tonne coal resource. This is an advanced project with over 30 years of low-cost open-cast JORC-compliant reserves. The EIAs for both the mine and power station are complete and water allocation and surface rights are approved. Water supply has been secured from Shashe dam and will be piped along existing servitudes. A backup supply will be obtained from a nearby well field.
The power plant is to be built 5km-6km from the coal mine mouth, with a conveyor belt constructed by the appointed EPC to transport the coal. The coal resource is estimated at over 840Mt at an average depth of 50m-60m, starting at a depth of 18m with an average thickness of 18m. The prefeasibility study on the mine, plant and associated infrastructure was completed in July 2015.
Limestone for the MEIPP, to be sourced from either Botswana or South Africa, will provide a calcium carbonate (CaCO3) content of more than 90% and water content of 1%.
Grid integration studies in respect of shallow connection to the Botswana Power Corporation (BPC) network have been completed and indicate a loop-in/loop-out connection to a new 400 kV line to be built by the BPC, with completion anticipated for 2019. The connection is envisaged to pass some 10 km from the MEIPP site.