The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) has approved an electricity trading licence for Envusa Energy – a joint venture between diversified miner Anglo-American and renewable energy company EDF Renewables South Africa (EDF).

In November, Envusa lodged an application for a licence to trade electricity in South Africa’s Northern Cape, North West, Eastern Cape and Limpopo provinces over the Eskom network.

Envusa Energy, acting as a trading entity, intends to buy electricity from three generators in the Northern Cape – the 140 MW Hartebeeshoek Wind Power plant, the 240 MW Mooi Plaats Solar Power plant and the 140 MW Umsobomvu Wind Power plant.

With Eskom acting as distributor through its national grid, Envusa intends to sell to three customers – De Beers operations in Limpopo, Rustenburg Platinum Mines in the North-West and Sishen Iron Ore Company in the Northern Cape, with the contracted capacity of 140 MW, 240 MW and 140 MW, respectively.

In November, Envusa said it intended to served the mining operations of Anglo American Platinum’s (Amplats’) Amandelbult underground platinum group metals (PGMs) mine in Limpopo, Kumba Iron Ore’s Kolomela mine in the Northern Cape, Amplats’ Mortimer smelter operation that straddles Limpopo and the North West, Amplats’ Mototolo PGMs mine in Limpopo, Amplats’ Polokwane smelter in Limpopo, Rustenburg PGMs mine in North West, and De Beers’ Venetia diamond mine near the Zimbabwe border and also in Limpopo.

In addition, Envusa Energy is launching electricity supply projects of more than 600 MW of wind and solar energy in South Africa. This is a major first step towards developing an ecosystem that is expected to generate 3 GW to 5GW of renewable energy by 2030.

Envusa Energy intends to supply Anglo American with a blend of renewable energy generated at Anglo American sites and renewable energy transmitted through the national grid. This energy portfolio approach will aggregate energy from geographically-dispersed renewable generating assets and allocate this energy.

Nersa notes that, more broadly, Envusa Energy’s licence signals the increased role of traders – both within South Africa and between South Africa and the Southern African Power Pool.