British mining company Anglo American and the renewable energy arm of France's EDF, EDF Renewables have unveiled Envusa Energy as their South Africa focused renewable energy joint venture to build 600 MW wind and solar projects under phase I.
The 600 MW pipeline is a mature one and is expected to be fully funded and ready for construction to begin in 2023. The funding plan includes debt financing that's 'typical for high quality energy infrastructure projects.
As per the arrangement, Envusa will supply Anglo American with a blend of renewable energy generated on the latter's site and renewable energy transmitted via the national grid. It will aggregate energy from geographically dispersed generating assets and allocate it optimally to meet the load demand for the mining company's sites.
Anglo American called it a significant milestone in the company's global decarbonization journey as it targets to achieve carbon neutral operations by 2040.
"This partnership with Anglo American confirms our long-term perspectives in the country: this 600 MW first tranche of projects will be added to the almost 1 GW that EDF Renewables will be building or operating in the country by 2023 – including 420 MW of wind projects in REIPPP Bid Window 5, whose PPAs were signed with Eskom and the DMRE on 22 September 2022," shared EDF Renewables CEO in South Africa Tristan de Drouas. "Together, these projects further EDF Group's CAP 2030 strategy, which aims to double our net renewable installed energy capacity worldwide (hydropower included) from 28 GW in 2015 to 60 GW by 2030."
The creation of Envusa Energy follows a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between the 2 companies to create a regional renewable energy ecosystem (RREE) and implement between 3 GW to 5 GW of solar and wind energy with storage in South Africa (see Up To 5 GW RE & Storage In South Africa).
Envusa Energy will also bring a Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) partner on board.