Middelburg Solar Farm
Utility-scale solar PV with battery energy storage (Solar PV + BESS), wheeled to a commercial and industrial off-taker in Mpumalanga. COD early 2026.
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
* Modeled annual displacement. Assumes 20% capacity factor, SA grid emissions factor 0.95 kg CO2/kWh.
Questions about Middelburg?
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