Kumba to build 63MW solar plant to power Sishen iron-ore mine

Kumba Iron Ore, Anglo American's South African iron-ore business, has announced plans for a 63MW solar photovoltaic plant to be built directly at its Sishen mine in the Northern Cape, adding embedded generation to the wheeled renewable power the company already draws from elsewhere on the grid. The project, to be developed by Envusa Energy — the renewable-energy joint venture between Anglo American and France's EDF — is expected to begin operating in the fourth quarter of 2027.

Unlike Envusa's wheeled projects, which generate power at a remote site such as the Northern Cape's Mooi Plaats plant and transmit it across Eskom's grid to the point of use, the Sishen plant will be built for direct, on-site consumption at the mine itself, cutting transmission losses and grid dependence for a portion of Sishen's daytime power needs.

Building on an existing renewables base

Kumba's move follows the start, in March 2026, of wheeled renewable electricity supply to its Kolomela mine, which already receives 11MW of wind and solar power through Envusa's Koruson 2 cluster. The Sishen project extends that renewable push to Kumba's largest mine, which produces the bulk of the roughly 96% of South African iron-ore exports that move through Transnet's Saldanha terminal.

Envusa, formed in 2022, is targeting between 3GW and 5GW of renewable generation capacity by 2030 to serve Anglo American's mining operations and other industrial customers in South Africa. The Sishen plant is one of several embedded and wheeled projects the venture has in development or under construction across Anglo's platinum, iron-ore and diamond businesses.

Why on-site power matters for iron ore

Iron-ore mining and beneficiation is energy-intensive, and Kumba, like other bulk commodity producers, has faced years of above-inflation Eskom tariff increases even as export prices have been volatile. An on-site solar plant reduces exposure to both future tariff increases and the risk of grid instability, without requiring the long-distance transmission capacity that wheeling projects depend on. As Kumba and other Anglo American operating companies build out a mix of wheeled and embedded renewable generation, the Sishen project is a relatively modest but concrete step toward the goal of supplying a much larger share of the group's mining energy needs from wind and solar by the end of the decade.

Sources

• Business Day: Kumba to power Sishen mine with new on-site solar project, 23 Jul 2026

Photo: Sishen iron-ore mine in South Africa's Northern Cape province. Graeme Williams, Media Club, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.