South Africa’s biggest solar power plants

Solar Capital’s De Aar compound remains the biggest solar power plant in South Africa, with a total capacity of 175.26MW split across two sites.

The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy’s IPP Projects database lists all the country’s operational and forthcoming renewable power plants, including each plant’s contracted capacity.

The Solar Capital De Aar Project in the Northern Cape includes two power plants — De Aar and De Aar 3 — producing 85.26MW and 90MW, respectively.

Combined, the 175MW of generation capacity is sufficient to provide approximately 75,000 homes with electricity per year.

The plants comprise more than 500,000 photovoltaic modules across 473 hectares.

The first phase — Solar Capital De Aar — was completed in August 2014, with Solar Capital De Aar 3 becoming operational in April 2016.

It took 28 months to construct the entire facility, and construction cost R4.8 billion.

There are plants in the country with a greater singular output. However, the combined generation of the two Solar Capital De Aar plants in South Africa is unmatched.

The next-biggest solar compound in South Africa comprises Dyason’s Klip 1 and 2 plants, which produce up to 150MW of solar energy combined.

However, this is also split across two sites, each contracted to provide 75MW of generating capacity.

Four solar power plants in South Africa provide a generating capacity of up to 100MW from a single site, including:

• !XiNa Solar One in Pofadder
• Karoshoek Solar One in Upington
• Kathu Solar Park in Kathu
• Kaxu Solar One in Pofadder

The Northern Cape is a popular location for IPPs

Of the 25 biggest solar power plants in South Africa, according to their maximum output, 19 are located in the Northern Cape.

However, this presents a significant challenge for the country’s energy security, with substantial investment required to upgrade the transmission grid in the region, which is now at capacity.

In December 2022, Intellidex managing director for capital markets Peter Attard Montalto said the failure to allocate slots for 3.2GW of wind power through bid window six was related to a lack of grid capacity.

He explained that South Africa desperately needs to expand its transmission grid, which has never been driven forward despite Eskom and the private sector saying it with increasing trepidation.

As a result, the transmission grids in the Northern, Western, and Eastern Cape are full — and will remain so until at least 2027.

Eskom confirmed this to MyBroadband, saying the transmission grids in the Greater Cape region were close to full. Since then, Eskom’s transmission grid reports show there are no slots available across the Cape provinces.

The transmission grids in Gauteng, Mpumalanga, and KwaZulu-Natal still have plenty of capacity. However, these aren’t as attractive to independent power producers (IPPs).

In May 2023, general manager at Scatec sub-Saharan Africa Jan Fourie said solar resources in the Northern Cape are about 10% better than elsewhere in the country.

Therefore, interest in regions like Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal is weak.

“The better solar resource in the Northern Cape can mean the difference between winning or losing the bid process for a private power producer,” said Fourie.

Montalto agreed but noted that while solar and wind generation in other provinces is slightly worse than in the Greater Cape region, they still outperform most other places developers look to around the globe.

Despite this, he said IPPs would still rather wait to access new transmission capacity in the Northern Cape, and called on them to change their perspective on the subject.

The 25 biggest solar power plants in South Africa based on Department of Mineral Resources and Energy IPP Projects data are listed in the table below.