News Flash
- Enpower Trading and solar IPP, SolarAfrica Energy, have signed a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) in a 100 MW renewable power supply deal.
- Enpower Trading have secured a generation licence from the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) for this purpose. Enpower is the first ‘energy trader’ to be a awarded a generation license in South Africa.
As an innovative energy trader, Enpower sources competitively-priced, predominantly renewable energy from IPPs and wheels this energy across the national and municipal grid networks to off-takers which can includes municipalities, enabling them to sell to customers at a discount to the prevailing tariff.
David McDonald, CEO SolarAfrica said, “Having signed similar deals with end consumers, we are excited about the dynamic that trading brings to our business and the market. Trading entities are a new market for us. The value of aggregation allows independent power producers (IPPs) to benefit from economies of scale. It essentially provides bankability for smaller consumers to gain access to renewable energy on a larger scale.”
James Beatty, Enpower’s CEO, said, “This is the first step toward unleashing the merchant market where demand is met through dynamic trade and we are excited to demonstrate the risk reduction that the trading model brings to SolarAfrica as an IPP by providing a diversified customer pool, alongside energy contracts that are more flexible and affordable for the South African market”.
Enpower boasts quite a diverse board. Apart from Banda’s wealth of experience, James Beatty has over 16 years of experience at top-tier banks and commodity trading houses, including Trafigura Group and Glencore. Burak Tutar has over 16 years of experience in the US, Turkey and Japan, Nikolai Germann, is an energy trader with over 25 years of experience in the sub-Saharan African energy sector and Charl Alheit, is a specialist in raising both debt and equity financing for distributed renewable energy projects across sub-Saharan Africa.
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
