South Africa has approved 17 clean energy projects costing R33.8 billion in the third of five bidding rounds in the renewable energy independent power producers programme. The Department of Energy had received bids in the third window for 6 023 megawatts of capacity and allocated 1 456MW, director-general Nelisiwe Magubane said yesterday. Energy Minister Ben Martins said “Window 3 will contribute approximately R4.4bn to socio-economic development, aggregating to a cumulative investment of R9bn.” Twenty-year power purchase agreements with Eskom helped drive R57bn of clean energy investments to the country last year, or about a quarter of the total invested in sub-Saharan Africa, Bloomberg data show. Of the 17 preferred bidders named in the third round, seven will provide power derived from wind, six from solar photovoltaic facilities, two from concentrated solar and one each from landfill gas and biomass. South Africa plans to add 3 725MW of renewable energy capacity by the end of 2016 with five tenders. That may help Eskom, which supplies more than 95 percent of the nation’s power and uses coal for 85 percent of its generation, to meet demand as it struggles to pay for expansion in the continent’s biggest economy.