TotalEnergies has commissioned a 216-megawatt solar plant paired with a 500-megawatt-hour battery storage system in South Africa’s Northern Cape, adding dispatchable renewable power to a grid long troubled by shortages and load-shedding.

The Hydra project, developed with Hydra Storage Holding and Reatile Renewables, will supply 75 megawatts of dispatchable renewable power to the national grid between 5:00 a.m. and 9:30 p.m., using battery storage to extend solar-generated electricity well beyond daylight hours. Annual output is projected to exceed 400 gigawatt-hours — enough to supply around 200,000 South African households — with the electricity sold to state utility Eskom under a 20-year power purchase agreement.

“This project enables us to supply dispatchable renewable power to the South African grid, thereby strengthening the country’s energy security while decarbonizing its electricity generation,” said Magali Pailhé, managing director of TotalEnergies Southern Africa, at the project’s inauguration. TotalEnergies holds 35 percent of the project, with Hydra Storage Holding owning another 35 percent and Reatile Renewables, a leading black-owned South African renewable energy developer, holding the remaining 30 percent.

The project was developed under South Africa’s Risk Mitigation Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme, which prioritises dispatchable generation capable of meeting demand reliably rather than only when the sun shines. South Africa had 16,598 megawatts of installed renewable capacity by the end of 2025, the largest such portfolio on the continent, though coal still dominates the country’s overall power generation.

Source: (africasustainabilitymatters.com)