A Limpopo solar farm is now powering a smelter in Richards Bay

Voltalia did not build a single kilometre of transmission line to get its electricity from Limpopo to Richards Bay. Instead, it uses Eskom’s.

Voltalia’s 148MW plant injects electricity into Eskom’s grid in Limpopo. Eskom meters what goes in and what RBM draws out at the other end, and reconciles the two financially against a schedule of standard prices. The mineral sands producer, a Rio Tinto subsidiary, buys the power under a 20-year corporate power purchase agreement. The utility is the wire, not the seller.

That arrangement, known as wheeling, has been talked about in South Africa for years. Bolobedu is now among the largest working examples: roughly 300GWh/year to a single industrial customer.

Voltalia says the plant cuts RBM’s annual greenhouse gas emissions by at least 10%, or about 237 000 tonnes of CO2e. That implies RBM’s scope 1 and 2 emissions run at no more than about 2.4 million tonnes a year, which puts the smelter among the country’s heavier industrial emitters.

It also implies a displaced emissions intensity of about 790kg of CO2e/MWh. Eskom’s grid factor is nearer a tonne, so the figure is conservative rather than generous.

Voltalia puts construction employment at about 800, more than half of them young people from the area, with roughly 50 permanent roles now that the plant is running. The project company is 35% black women-owned, split between Renewable Solutions at 21% and Growth Arm at 14%, with both shareholders represented on the board.

Wheeling is the mechanism that lets a company buy electricity from someone other than Eskom without building its own line to the generator. It is what Blu Label is banking on for its municipal solar plans, and it is the reason large users have been able to contract private generation while ordinary households still cannot choose a supplier .

Bolobedu shows the model works at industrial scale. It also shows how long it takes. RBM began the procurement process in 2021, signed with Voltalia in October 2022, and the plant was originally scheduled for completion in 2024. It reached full commissioning in April this year.

Voltalia has an agreement with the International Finance Corporation, signed in October 2025, to accelerate power-to-mine projects across African mining. On the evidence of Bolobedu, the constraint is not appetite. Rio Tinto wanted the power four years ago. – © 2026 NewsCentral Media