South Africa’s commercial and industrial (C&I) energy market has moved beyond the question of whether businesses should invest in alternative energy.
Increasingly, the question is how businesses can design energy portfolios that improve cost competitiveness, supply resilience, operational continuity and decarbonisation while remaining commercially viable.
The rapid growth of private-sector renewable energy has been enabled by a combination of factors:
Notably wheeling enables energy generated in one location to be delivered to an end-user elsewhere through the transmission or distribution network.
Importantly for C&I customers, wheeling allows businesses to access renewable generation without necessarily developing generation assets at their own facilities.
At the same time, the business case is becoming more sophisticated. Companies are combining behind-the-meter solar, utility-scale renewable PPAs, wheeling, battery storage, energy efficiency and conventional grid supply to create diversified energy portfolios rather than relying on a single intervention.
The following case studies illustrate how this transition is taking shape across South Africa.
Mining is one of the clearest examples of how C&I energy procurement has evolved in South Africa. Mines operate with substantial and often continuous electricity demand, making both energy costs and security of supply critical to operational performance.
Harmony Gold provides a useful example of a phased approach.
The company commissioned three 10MW solar PV facilities at its Tshepong, Nyala and Eland operations in the Free State in May 2023.
Together, the facilities were designed to deliver approximately 70GWh of renewable electricity annually and reduce CO2 emissions by approximately 65,000 tonnes per year.
Harmony subsequently expanded the strategy. Its second phase targeted an additional 137MW of renewable energy, with the company indicating that the broader programme could generate significant electricity cost savings while reducing dependence on Eskom.
The company’s own case study provides an important lesson: renewable energy is not being treated simply as an ESG initiative.
The investment is explicitly linked to cost reduction, energy security and decarbonisation. In 2024, Harmony reported that its Phase 1 projects generated 65.3GWh of renewable energy.
Harmony demonstrates the value of developing an energy transition roadmap rather than a single project.
For large energy users, a phased approach can allow the business to:
The important takeaway is that the first solar project does not need to be the final energy solution.
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Tronox demonstrates another important model: a geographically dispersed industrial customer using utility-scale renewable generation and wheeling rather than relying solely on onsite generation.
In 2022, Tronox entered into a long-term PPA with South African IPP SOLA Group for 200MW of solar power. The project was structured to supply Tronox’s South African mines and smelters through the Eskom network.
Tronox expected the project to provide approximately 40% of its South African electricity requirements and reduce its global Scope 1 and 2 emissions by approximately 13%.
The project subsequently became a landmark example of corporate renewable wheeling in South Africa. SOLA’s two solar plants in the North West Province were commissioned in 2024, supplying more than 200MW to Tronox through Eskom’s transmission network.
The facilities comprise more than 390,000 bifacial modules and are expected to generate approximately 593,721MWh annually.
The significance of the project extends beyond the renewable capacity itself.
It demonstrates how a C&I customer with multiple energy-intensive facilities can access competitively priced renewable energy even when suitable generation cannot be installed directly at each consumption site.
Wheeling can fundamentally change the geography of corporate energy procurement.
A company does not necessarily need sufficient land, solar irradiation or grid capacity at every operational site.
Instead, it can contract with a generator located where renewable resources and grid infrastructure are more favourable and use the transmission or distribution network to allocate the energy to its operations.
Eskom describes this as a financial balancing mechanism rather than a literal transfer of electrons from point A to point B.
For C&I businesses, this creates an important strategic question: should the next rand of energy investment go into onsite generation, offsite generation, storage, efficiency or a combination of all four?
Sibanye-Stillwater illustrates the next stage of corporate energy procurement: moving from individual projects to a portfolio of PPAs across multiple technologies and locations.
In its 2024 Integrated Report, the mining group stated that it was implementing a major renewable energy portfolio for its South African operations, with a target of 600MW of renewable capacity operational by late 2026.
At the time, 407MW of solar and wind projects were under construction, with the portfolio expected to cost between R12 billion and R14 billion and be funded by third parties through PPAs. The portfolio included:
Sibanye reported that the completed portfolio was expected to supplement approximately 30% of its total electrical energy requirements and generate material cost savings.
The 89MW Castle Wind Farm provides a particularly useful example of how procurement strategy can intersect with grid constraints. The project reached financial close in 2023 and subsequently achieved commercial operation in the first quarter of 2025.
Sibanye reported annual generation of approximately 309GWh, equivalent to 5.5% of its South African electricity demand, while the initial unit cost was more than 15% below prevailing utility rates.
Lrge energy users should increasingly think in terms of an energy portfolio rather than a single technology.
Solar and wind have different generation profiles. Combining them can improve the overall capacity of renewable supply, while PPAs can reduce the capital burden on the offtaker.
The Sibanye model also highlights another increasingly important C&I consideration; grid capacity is becoming a project-development constraint. Securing grid access can therefore be just as important as securing land, financing or a suitable generation technology.
Tharisa provides an example of an energy-intensive mining company pursuing a diversified energy strategy.
The company’s 2025 sustainability reporting identifies three important components of its energy transition: the planned 40MW Buffelspoort solar PV facility, wind and solar wheeling, and the potential use of battery energy storage.
The Buffelspoort project is designed to supply the Tharisa Mine through a dedicated 88kV connection. However, the company has identified limited grid connection capacity as a potential source of delay.
At the same time, Tharisa’s wheeling PPA is intended to provide up to 68% of the mine’s electricity from wind and solar projects located in the Western and Northern Cape, with first wheeled energy expected by the end of December 2026.
This is particularly significant because it illustrates a key reality facing C&I energy projects: the best energy solution on paper may not be the easiest project to connect to the grid.
Energy strategy needs to account for the entire infrastructure chain: generation, connection, transmission/distribution, wheeling, offtake, storage and consumption.
A solar project cannot deliver value to an industrial customer simply because the solar resource is strong and the economics are attractive.
Grid capacity, connection costs, network studies, contractual arrangements and regulatory requirements can determine whether the project is ultimately viable.
Tharisa’s experience also demonstrates why storage is increasingly being considered as part of a broader energy architecture rather than as a standalone technology.
The case studies point towards several common trends:
Early corporate solar projects were often justified primarily through electricity-bill savings.
That is no longer sufficient. Today’s C&I energy investment decisions increasingly sit at the intersection of cost, resilience, decarbonisation, operational risk and capital allocation.
A project that delivers slightly cheaper electricity but does not address reliability, grid constraints or long-term strategic objectives may not necessarily be the optimal solution.
One of the strongest common threads across the case studies is the use of third-party capital.
Harmony’s renewable programme has included project-finance structures and PPAs, while Sibanye’s large renewable portfolio is being funded by third parties through PPAs.
This model allows businesses to access new generation without necessarily carrying the entire upfront capital requirement on their own balance sheet.
For Chief Financial Officers and investment committees, this shifts the discussion from: “Can we afford to build a power plant?” to “Which energy procurement structure creates the best risk-adjusted value for our business?”
South Africa’s wheeling market is providing a pathway for large customers to access renewable generation remotely.
Eskom’s framework allows privately generated electricity to be transmitted through the network to customers under a willing-buyer/willing-seller model, subject to the relevant technical, contractual and tariff requirements.
Municipal wheeling is also becoming increasingly important. SALGA’s municipal wheeling guideline highlights the need to address tariff construction, network infrastructure, legal requirements, metering, data exchange and municipal revenue neutrality.
This means that wheeling should not be viewed simply as an energy procurement contract.
It is a multi-party infrastructure and commercial arrangement involving the generator, offtaker, network operator, municipality where applicable, regulator, financiers and potentially a trader.
The rapid growth of private generation has created a new constraint: access to suitable grid capacity. This is increasingly influencing where projects are developed and how corporate buyers structure their procurement.
The experience of Tharisa, for example, demonstrates how a technically viable renewable project can encounter delays because of grid connection capacity.
For C&I customers, grid availability therefore needs to be assessed at the beginning of the procurement process and not after a preferred generation project has already been selected.
South Africa’s battery storage market is developing rapidly. Eskom’s own BESS programme demonstrates the role that batteries can play in integrating renewable energy, strengthening the electricity system and improving the flexibility of supply.
The programme was designed around 1,440MWh of distributed battery storage alongside a 60MW solar PV capacity. For C&I customers, the application is different but equally strategic. Behind-the-meter batteries can potentially be used to:
The strongest business cases will increasingly be those where storage is integrated into an overall energy-management strategy, rather than deployed simply because battery prices have fallen.
South Africa now has a growing body of real-world evidence showing that private-sector energy interventions can move beyond pilot projects and become large-scale, financeable infrastructure programmes.
The next opportunity is to move from isolated success stories to systematic replication.
That means creating a stronger pipeline of bankable projects, improving access to capital, standardising commercial structures, resolving grid constraints, strengthening wheeling frameworks, integrating storage and helping energy users make better-informed procurement decisions.
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