Middelburg Solar Farm + BESS
Utility-scale solar PV with battery energy storage (Solar PV + BESS), wheeled to a commercial and industrial off-taker in Mpumalanga. COD early 2029.
Location
Middelburg sits in Mpumalanga's industrial corridor, the same Highveld stretch that hosts the Samancor manganese smelter and the Eskom coal complex. Solar resource is strong, the grid is adjacent, and a commercial and industrial off-taker is wheeling the output through the grid at a fraction of Eskom tariff.
Project story
Middelburg started where every AEEG project starts: with the landowner. Three site visits before MOU, two before off-taker conversations began. The technical fit was straightforward; sun-rich, grid-adjacent, sized appropriately for a wheeled C&I PPA. The harder work was the months of trust-building that made the lease defensible to the family selling it.
The wheeling agreement structures the energy delivery: AEEG generates at site, energy flows into the public grid, the off-taker draws an equivalent quantity at their location at a contracted tariff. The off-taker pays less than Eskom; AEEG receives a long-term contracted revenue stream; the grid takes a usage fee.
Middelburg is the template for the next 200 MW of wheeled C&I projects in our pipeline. Single-tenant wheeled deals like this one work for off-takers with predictable industrial loads and ESG reporting requirements, increasingly common across South Africa's mining and heavy industry.
Milestones
Landowner agreements secured
Commercial terms negotiated, long-term PPA executed
Site preparation and racking installation begins
First power delivered to off-taker
Partners
Engineering and EPC partner (under MOU)
Full-scope engineering, procurement, and construction. Technical design through to commissioning.
Off-taker (confidential)
Major C&I industrial operation. Long-term wheeled PPA at contracted tariff.
Community impact
180 jobs over 24 months of construction. Local procurement and skills transfer commitments specific to Middelburg; details available on request to landowner partners and government counterparts.
Carbon displacement
* Modelled annual displacement. Assumes 20% capacity factor, SA grid emissions factor 0.95 kg CO2/kWh.
Questions about Middelburg + BESS?
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