South Africa has officially commissioned its largest operational "wheeling" project, which will add 256 megawatts (MW) of renewable energy capacity to the national grid to power mineral sands miner Tronox Mineral Sand's operations.
The project, developed by vertically integrated renewable energy solutions provider Sola Group, encompasses two solar photovoltaic plants with capacities of 126MW and 130MW, respectively.
The project is seen as good news for the town of Lichtenburg which has suffered several setbacks to its micro-economy, especially in 2021 when dairy producer Clover announced it would withdraw from the North West agricultural municipality due to deteriorating road conditions and poor service delivery, especially in respect of water supply.
The solar facilities on the outskirts of Lichtenburg comprise over 390 000 bifacial solar modules on single-axis tracking systems, and will generate 593 721MW of clean energy annually, enough to power over 80 000 households.
This renewable power will be transmitted through the Eskom grid to five of Tronox's sites, covering around 40% of the company's power requirements in South Africa.
Sola Assets managing director Katherine Persson explained that wheeling is differentiated from a traditional behind-the-meter or roof-top project, where the electrons generated are used directly by the user.
She said it entails a financial transaction where the electrons created by the facility go into the national grid and are then used by the sites on the other side from the grid.
Approximately 420 000 tonnes of CO2 emissions are expected to be stripped out of the atmosphere by the project annually.
It is projected to reduce Tronox's Scope 2 emissions by about 38%.
