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Selemela Solar (Lichtenburg) C&I / wheeling

Medium confidence operational Last researched: 2026-06-26

Sources

• https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/01/20/south-africa-adds-1-1-gw-of-solar-in-2024/ (2026-06-26)
• SOLA Group official project page — Selemela Solar Park (2024)
• Energize — South Africa launches 'biggest' wheeling project with 256 MW solar capacity (2024)
• VUKA Group / ESI-Africa — Largest wheeling project in SA officially commissioned (EPC, MWp split, FC Sept 2022) (2024-07-16)
• Wikipedia — SOLA Group (2025)

Research notes

Cited as SOLA's flagship 256 MW private wheeling project. Capacity/status from trade-press roundup; verify before import. VERIFIED and OPERATIONAL — seed hint status 'construction' is now OUTDATED. The project was officially commissioned 16 July 2024 (operational by August 2024); change status to operational. Project exists and is well-documented across SOLA Group's own site plus multiple SA energy-trade outlets (Energize, ESI-Africa/VUKA, Mining Weekly, ITWeb, SABC). Developer (SOLA Group) and the 256 MW headline figure from the seed are CONFIRMED. CAPACITY / AC-vs-DC CONFLICT (flagged): The 256 MW total is reported as the sum of two PV plants quoted as 126 MWp + 130 MWp = 256 MWp — i.e. the underlying figures are DC (peak). Yet several outlets and SOLA's own page label the headline as '256 MW' and some explicitly as '256 MWac'. It is unlikely both the AC and DC ratings equal exactly 256; the 126/130 sub-figures are clearly MWp (DC). I have entered mw_ac=256 and mw_dc=256 because that is how sources present them, but treat these as the SAME headline number reported inconsistently rather than two independently measured values. The true AC inverter rating is probably somewhat below 256 (typical DC:AC ratio >1), but no source gives a distinct AC figure, so I did not invent one. Conflict is recorded here. PROJECT STRUCTURE: Selemela is a CLUSTER. The 256 MW Tronox park = two plants (126 MWp + 130 MWp), offtaker Tronox. A separate ~126–132 MWp Selemela project (SOLA, EPC WBHO/SOLA Build) serves African Rainbow Minerals (ARM), wheeled to Limpopo/Mpumalanga — be careful not to conflate the ARM plant's MW with the Tronox 256 MW total. TECH: ~390,073 bifacial modules on single-axis trackers, 430 ha, ~593,721 MWh/yr (~420,000 t CO2 avoided/yr). No BESS/storage mentioned in any source — storage left null. FINANCE/TIMELINE: Awarded H2 2021; financial close September 2022 (~just under R4bn financing for the combined deal; one ITWeb piece cites R2.5bn for a single plant); construction 2022–2024; commissioned mid-2024. Described as the largest corporate renewable PPA in Africa at the time of FC. GEO: No published coordinates found; pin is a Lichtenburg town-level approximation (geo.confidence=approximate). The Arup, Mining Weekly and ESI-Africa pages returned 403/404 to the fetcher but corroborating detail was obtained via search snippets. VERIFY: Adversarial check: project EXISTS and is well-documented (SOLA's own page + Engineering News, ESI-Africa/VUKA, CleanTechnica, pv-magazine, Mail & Guardian, REGlobal). CONFIRMED: developer=SOLA Group; status=operational (officially commissioned 16 July 2024); EPC=WBHO + SOLA Build JV; offtaker=Tronox Mineral Sands via Eskom wheeling; financial close Sep 2022; tracker=single-axis bifacial (~390,073 modules, 430 ha). DC capacity 256 MWp (126+130) corroborated. REFUTED: mw_ac=256 — sources consistently say 256 MWp DC INSTALLED but ~200 MW delivered/AC; the deal was branded a '200 MW' project at FC. Drop mw_ac (or set to ~200 flagged). REFUTED geo: (-26.15,26.16) equals Lichtenburg town centre, not the plant — keep as approximate town pin only, do not assert as plant coordinates. Caveat owner: African Rainbow Energy is funder/largest SOLA shareholder (co-equity); do not conflate ARE with ARM. Confidence set to MEDIUM (not high) because the asserted AC capacity is wrong and geo is a guess, despite strong corroboration of existence/developer/DC capacity. CONFLICTS: AC vs DC capacity: mw_ac=256 is NOT supported. Multiple independent sources (VUKA/ESI-Africa, engineeringnews, SOLA) state 256 MWp INSTALLED (DC, = 126+130 MWp) but only ~200 MW DELIVERED to the grid; the deal was repeatedly described at financial close as a '200 MW' project (CleanTechnica, pv-magazine, Mail & Guardian, REGlobal). The true AC rating is ~200 MW, not 256. The overlay itself flags this yet still entered mw_ac=256, asserting a wrong figure. ; Owner field incomplete/single-source: overlay says owner='SOLA Group' sole. Financial-close coverage names African Rainbow Energy (ARE) as the funder and largest shareholder of SOLA Group / funder of the two projects — i.e. there is a co-equity/funding partner. Note ARE (African Rainbow Energy) is distinct from ARM (African Rainbow Minerals); the overlay's 'related 126 MWp serves ARM' note risks conflation. ; Construction-start date conflict: overlay says construction_start=2022; VUKA/ESI-Africa article says 'construction commencement September 2023' and that construction completed in 2023. Financial close (Sep 2022) is solid, but the construction-start year is reported inconsistently. ; Offtaker delivery locations: overlay says 'three in Western Cape, two in KwaZulu-Natal.' Most sources confirm Western Cape + KwaZulu-Natal, but at least one search snippet said 'Western Cape and Northern Cape' — minor inconsistency in the destination provinces. ; Geo coordinates (-26.15, 26.16) are simply the town-centre coordinates of Lichtenburg itself (geodatos lists Lichtenburg at -26.152, 26.15968) — i.e. a town-level guess, not the plant site. No source publishes the actual plant coordinates; gem.wiki (Merak 2) was blocked (403). ; COD date inconsistency: sources variously cite commercial operation 24 April 2024, 'early 2024', operational August 2024, and official commissioning 16 July 2024. Operational status is solid but the precise COD varies by source.

Planning intel compiled from open-source data — not a tender document. Suggest a correction or add missing info →