A mega-scale solar and battery storage hub is under construction on a 560 ha site in the grid-ready Free State province – a development that comprises two solar PV farms with a combined capacity of 506 MW and advanced plans for the construction of an associated battery energy storage system (BESS).

The NOA Group, which is developing the project to supply private customers, reports that the 157 MW Khauta West solar PV facility achieved financial close this month. This, after the 349 MW Khauta South advanced to financial close in June.

No capital expenditure values have been disclosed, but NOA Group CEO Karel Cornelissen confirms with Engineering News that the debt financing is being provided by Standard Bank.

Khauta West is expected to enter into commercial operation in the fourth quarter of next year, while the larger Khauta South will follow in the first quarter of 2027.

The project will connect to an existing Eskom substation by an overhead transmission line, and NOA says the project is leveraging the province’s relatively strong grid availability when compared with other regions where there are grid capacity constraints.

The electricity will be wheeled through the national grid and will be sold to a portfolio of private-sector customers across the mining, manufacturing, data centre and commercial real estate sectors.

Besides constructing and operating large-scale wind, solar and energy storage plants, the NOA Group is also an aggregator and NOA Trading has secured a trading licence from the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa).

Cornelissen says all of the energy from the Khauta Cluster has been contracted on a 30 year generator power purchase agreement to NOA Trading, which will sell the electricity produced to a portfolio of customers on various tenors, ranging from 12 months to 25 years.

While pricing varies by customer, he tells Engineering News that the prices will be at a “significant discount to current Eskom pricing”.

Cornelissen notes that the combined Khauta Cluster will be the country’s largest single-asset solar PV facility, and will be able to deliver 1 073 GWh of renewable electricity yearly once constructed.

The company expects to achieve financial close on the BESS component at the cluster by mid-2026.

“For NOA’s private offtake partners, BESS brings more consistent supply and the ability to meet peak-load demands,” he says, adding that BESS will help it integrate renewable electricity without compromising grid stability or reliability.

NOA reports that its own wind and solar PV assets currently stand at 601 MW, with a partner independent power producer providing a further 144 MW of wind.

The company is also advancing a near-term project pipeline of 727 MW of combined wind and solar capacity and has a target to deliver more than 5 000 MW of generation capacity prior to 2030.