South African independent power generation company Anthem has begun construction of the Notsi Solar PV project, a 475 MWac (620 MWdc) utility-scale solar power facility in the Free State province. This is the largest single-phase solar power development to reach financial completion and commence construction in South Africa’s history. The R9 billion (approximately US$490 million) project reached financial close on March 5, 2026, with financing arranged by a consortium led by Standard Bank as co-mandated lead arranger, coordinating lead arranger, facility agent and hedge bank, along with Nedbank, ABSA and Vantage Green XNote. China Energy Engineering Corporation (CEEC), in partnership with Northwest Power Design Institute, will be the engineering, procurement and construction contractor, with construction expected to be completed within 26 months, targeted for early summer 2028. The entire output of the Notsi project is contracted under long-term power purchase agreements of more than 20 years with Discovery Green and NOA Group, two of South Africa’s major energy trading platforms, under a consignment model that feeds power directly into Eskom’s national grid. For commercial and industrial customers.
1,000 hectares in the Free State: the scale of what Notsi represents
The Notch Solar Project spans more than 1,000 hectares of land in the Free State Province, the heartland of South Africa’s inland grain agriculture, and combines flat, sunny terrain, land availability and proximity to high-voltage grid infrastructure characteristic of the country’s most productive solar development zone. Physically speaking, the project’s footprint is equivalent to more than 1,000 rugby pitches or approximately 40 runways at Cape Town or Tambo International Airport in Oregon. More than 860,000 solar panels installed across this footprint will generate approximately 1.5 million MWh of clean electricity annually. This is enough to cover the average annual consumption of approximately 140,000 South African households.
Project Fact Sheet: Notsi Solar Power Project
Project name: Notsi Solar Power Project
Location: South Africa, Free State (Central Interior)
Developer/Owner/Operator: Anthem (lead investor, developer, majority stake, long-term operator)
Capital partnership: Realtile Group
Total project cost: R9 billion (approximately US$490 million)
Power generation capacity: 475 MWac / 620 MWdc
Site area: >1,000 hectares
Solar panels: ~860,000+
Annual energy output: ~1,500,000 MWh (~1.5 TWh)
Household equivalent amount: Approximately 140,000 per year
Financial year end: March 5, 2026
Construction begins: March 2026 (week of March 17, 2026)
Construction period: ~26 months
Completion target: early summer 2028
Offtake model: Multiple offtakers wheeling through the Eskom national grid
Offtake Agreement: Over 20 years of PPA with Discovery Green and NOA Group
Why it matters: South Africa’s largest single-phase solar power project by capacity
Additional infrastructure: Transmission substation (transferred to Eskom/NTCSA)
Future options: Obtain environmental permits for battery energy storage system (BESS) additions
Project Team: Notsi Solar Power Project
Lead Developer / IPP: Anthem (Established in 2025; a combination of African Clean Energy Developments, EIMS Africa, Mahlako Energy Fund and Norfund; managed by African Infrastructure Investment Managers, part of IDEAS Fund)
Anthem CEO: James Cumming
Anthem CCO: Mike Wickins
Capital partnership: Realtile Group (Founder and Chairman: Simphiwe Mehlomakulu)
EPC contractor: China Energy Engineering Corporation (CEEC) + Northwestern Power Design Institute
Lead Debt Arranger/Facility Agent: Standard Bank (Joint Lead Arranger, Coordinating Lead Arranger, Facility Agent, Hedge Bank)
Co-financiers: Nedbank; Absa; Vantage GreenX Notes
Offtaker 1: Discovery Green (a division of Discovery Limited Group, CEO: Andre Nepgen)
Offtaker 2: NOA Group (CEO: Karel Cornelissen)
Grid operator: Eskom / National Transmission Company South Africa (NTCSA)
Regulatory Authority: NERSA (South African National Energy Regulatory Authority)
At 475 MWac / 620 MWdc, Notsi exceeds South Africa’s largest ever single-phase solar PV project in both nameplate capacity and total scale, establishing a new benchmark for what the country’s private renewable energy market can generate, finance and build in a single transaction. The project is in the process of building its own transmission substation for generations. This is a dedicated grid connectivity infrastructure investment that will be funded by Anthem as part of the project cost and transferred to Eskom and the National Transmission Company of South Africa (NTCSA) at a later date. This substation investment solves grid access challenges that have historically constrained private renewable energy development in the Free State, and directly addresses one of the structural weaknesses of South Africa’s electricity infrastructure: chronic underinvestment in transmission and distribution networks that limits the ability of new generations to reach load centers even when generation itself is available.
Anthem, Realtile, and Project Leadership Team
Anthem is South Africa’s lead investor, developer, majority stakeholder and long-term operator of the Notsi project. Founded in 2025 through the merger of Africa Clean Energy Development and EIMS Africa (two established renewable energy platforms operating under the IDEAS Fund managed by the Africa Infrastructure Investment Manager) and Maflako Energy Fund and Norfund, Anthem entered the market as one of South Africa’s largest renewable energy investment holding companies from day one of operations. The newly launched business has a portfolio of over 2 GW of wind, solar and hydro projects already in operation or under construction, with Notsi representing the largest asset within its portfolio. Anthem CEO James Cumming articulates Notsi’s strategic rationale: The project has been developed specifically on a “huge scale” to provide low-cost wholesale electricity to the private market, while at the same time generating the scale needed to amortize the significant grid upgrade investments the project is building on behalf of Eskom and NTCSA. It is a model that aligns the commercial interests of developers with the country’s infrastructure development needs.
Reatile Group is a diversified infrastructure and energy investment company with deep roots in South Africa’s Broad Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) economy and is Anthem’s capital partner in the Notsi project. Reatile Founder and Executive Chairman Simphiwe Mehlomakulu highlighted that the project aligns with South Africa’s twin imperatives of energy security and transformation. On the construction side, China Energy Engineering Corporation (CEEC), one of China’s largest state-owned energy infrastructure development companies, has an extensive portfolio of large-scale solar power plant completions across Africa and Asia, is a major EPC contractor, and partners with Northwest Power Design Institute for engineering and design. Anthem’s operations and maintenance team will take over full operational responsibility from the EPC contractor from the third year of the project’s operation period, providing continuity of long-term domestic management of the facility.
Energy trader behind Wheeling model and Notch acquisition
The commercial structure of the Notsi project is a sophisticated multi-offtaker consignment model. This mechanism emerged as the defining architecture for South Africa’s private renewable energy market following power sector reforms in the early 2020s that liberalized wheeling and enabled large-scale captive generation outside the Eskom franchise system. Under this model, electricity generated at the Notsi plant in the Free State is transmitted via Eskom’s national grid (using wheeling agreements with Eskom for grid access) and delivered to commercial and industrial customers across the country who have long-term power supply agreements with Notsi’s two energy trading companies, Discovery Green and NOA Group.
Discovery Green, a division of Discovery Limited Group and one of South Africa’s leading trader-led renewable energy platforms, has signed a more than 20-year offtake agreement as one of Notsi’s two anchor offtakers. Company CEO Andre Knepgen explained that the project will enable Discovery Green to provide large and small businesses with access to globally competitive energy prices without customers having to invest in power generation assets or take on construction or operational risks. NOA Group, a South African IPP, aggregator and energy trader backed by experienced infrastructure investors, brings Notsi’s contracted portfolio to a total of approximately 1.5GW of generation capacity through owned assets and strategic generation partnerships. CNBC Africa reported that Notsi’s work will support the sustainability efforts of major industrial companies including Sasol, Glencore and Impala Platinum. These company names demonstrate the depth of decarbonization demand among the companies for which Anthem has developed this project. Under the wheeling tariff regime managed by NERSA, commercial and industrial customers typically achieve electricity bill savings of 20-30% compared to Eskom wholesale tariffs, providing a compelling commercial case alongside the carbon reduction benefits.
South Africa’s solar power generation capacity expansion and notch position in national transformation
The start of construction on the Notsi Solar Project comes within the framework of policy ambitions and accelerating private investment activity to fundamentally reshape South Africa’s power generation landscape. In November 2025, Minister of Power and Energy Kgosiensho Ramokgopa announced South Africa’s latest Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), pledging to add more than 28GW of new solar capacity to the country’s electricity grid by 2039. The goal is to put utility-scale solar power at the center of the country’s long-term energy security strategy. IRP’s publication follows years of power shortages and load shedding culminating in rolling blackouts of more than 200 days in 2023, triggering an unprecedented wave of private investment in off-grid and self-propelled renewable energy generation across the C&I sector. One of the most ambitious responses to this demand signal is SolarAfrica’s 1 GW SunCentral solar power project in the Northern Cape. The project, with its first 144MW component reaching financial close with $98 million in support from Investec and RMB, pioneers a one-to-many transmission model that simultaneously delivers renewable energy to a wide range of commercial and industrial customers, a structural innovation that could serve as a blueprint for similar projects across the continent.
Notsi’s size, consignment structure and multiple off-taker model are emblematic of the direction in which South Africa’s electricity market is evolving. The project will avoid the historic bottleneck of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Program (REIPPPP), which procures power generation for Eskom through competitive bidding rounds, and will instead be developed entirely within the private wheeling market and finance construction through bank debt and equity rather than government-backed generation guarantees. As Anthem CEO James Cumming has argued, the multi-offtaker wholesale model represents the future of energy security in South Africa, where independent power producers, commercial offtakers and grid operators work together within a regulatory framework to deliver competitive clean electricity to the private sector, reducing the country’s dependence on a single utility and accelerating the transition to low-carbon energy consumption.
