Envusa's Mooi Plaats solar plant starts powering Anglo American's mines

Envusa Energy, the renewable-energy joint venture between Anglo American and France's EDF, has started commercial operation at its 240MW Mooi Plaats solar photovoltaic plant in the Northern Cape, the largest single component of its Koruson 2 renewable energy cluster. The wider K2 cluster, comprising Mooi Plaats plus the 140MW Umsobomvu wind project in the Eastern Cape and the 140MW Hartebeesthoek wind farm in the Northern Cape, has a combined capacity of 520MW.

Power from the cluster is wheeled across Eskom's transmission grid under long-term agreements to three Anglo American-linked mining businesses: Kumba Iron Ore, Valterra Platinum and De Beers. Anglo American's chief projects officer said the project "contributes to early tariff relief and supports the development of local economic opportunities", pointing to the more than 1,300 jobs created during construction and R20 million invested in local socio-economic development around the project sites.

Wheeling, not owning

Rather than building generation capacity that only serves a single mine, Envusa uses South Africa's wheeling framework, introduced after reforms that lifted the licensing threshold for self-generation, to transmit power from remote solar and wind sites to mines and processing plants elsewhere on the grid under 20-year contracts. This lets Anglo's operating companies lock in electricity priced 20% to 30% below Eskom's projected tariffs, according to Envusa, while avoiding the capital cost of owning power plants themselves.

Anglo American formed Envusa with EDF in 2022, and the venture's current generation base of 520MW already represents about 30% of Anglo's South African mines' energy consumption. Envusa has said it intends to expand its portfolio to between 3GW and 5GW of wind, solar and battery storage by 2030, supplying not just Anglo's own operations but other industrial users in mining, steel and cement.

Part of an industry-wide shift

Anglo's build-out mirrors moves by rivals Sibanye-Stillwater and Exxaro, which have separately contracted hundreds of megawatts of wheeled renewable capacity for their own South African operations, as miners try to cut exposure to Eskom's tariff increases and the risk of a return to load shedding later this decade. For Kumba, De Beers and Valterra Platinum, Mooi Plaats' commissioning is an early, tangible step towards that lower-cost, lower-carbon power mix — though it still leaves the bulk of their electricity demand reliant on the Eskom grid for now.

Sources

• Business Day: Envusa's solar project begins powering Anglo American-linked operations, 18 Mar 2026
• Engineering News: Envusa Energy confirms supply of renewable energy to key mines, 28 Apr 2026

Photo: A solar power plant in South Africa's Northern Cape, the region where Anglo American's Envusa solar projects are based. Bernard DUPONT, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.