Eskom greenlights gold miner's 10-MW embedded solar farm in S Africa

Juwi Renewable Energies said on Thursday that a 10-MW behind-the-meter solar PV farm it developed for a gold mine in South Africa received full grid code compliance from South African utility Eskom.

The solar project, named Elikhulu, was developed for South African mid-tied gold producer Pan African Resources plc (JSE:PAN) to power its operations at the Evander gold mine. The Elikhulu plant is online and generating, and will produce enough electricity to meet 30% of the miner’s demand at Evander.

The milestone is notable because Elikhulu is South Africa’s first embedded renewables project of over 1 MW to get Eskom’s grid-connection approval, Juwi said.

In 2021, the South African government raised the licensing threshold for embedded generation projects to 100 MW from 1 MW to alleviate the load shedding crisis in the country, enabling private investments in renewables by large energy consumers.

With the licensing threshold raised, Pan African Resources plans to expand Elikhulu to 22 MW in 2023, Juwi said.

Juwi Renewable Energies, also known as Juwi South Africa, is part of Germany-based renewables developer Juwi Group, which, in turn, is owned by Mannheim-based energy supplier MVV Energie AG.

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