Eskom, the utility South Africans learned to blame for the dark, is trying on a new identity, cautiously. At the SA-China Energy Investment Conference on 5 August, its year-old renewables subsidiary, Eskom Green, told investors it will release a tender for a 2 gigawatt solar and 1 gigawatt battery-storage project within the next month, and is hunting for partners to help build it.
The eye-catching part is not the megawatts. It is the money. Rather than pile fresh borrowing onto Eskom's famously strained balance sheet, Eskom Green plans to fund projects through separate project companies, special-purpose vehicles, in which it and private partners inject equity and raise 70% to 80% of the cost as ring-fenced debt. The structure keeps most of the risk off Eskom's own books.
What unlocked the plan
The approach became possible in July, when Eskom Green secured approvals under the Public Finance Management Act allowing it to raise funding and enter public-private partnerships. Chief executive Rivoningo Mnisi said the unit has brought in the Development Bank of Southern Africa and PwC to advise on selecting partners, and is in the final stages of that process. The mandate is ambitious: 5.6 gigawatts of renewables by 2030, rising to 32 gigawatts by 2040.
A build too big for one balance sheet
The funding model is not just clever accounting; it reflects a hard limit. Eskom plans R343 billion of capital investment over five years under tight restrictions on new debt, so growth has to come without deepening the debt pile. Alongside the flagship tender, Eskom Green is rolling out about 500 megawatts across seven sites, including a 75 megawatt solar plant at Lethabo, and is courting partners for the roughly R40 billion Tubatse pumped-storage scheme. Even the 32 gigawatt target, Eskom chief executive Dan Marokane pointed out, leaves more than two-thirds of the country's renewable-energy build to the private sector, a tacit admission that no single utility can carry the transition. The strategy is sensible on paper. Whether a cash-strapped Eskom can deliver on time, attract the private money it needs, and do it without leaning on special treatment is the test that lies ahead.
