NOA Group Trading (Pty) Ltd (“NOA Trading”), the trading subsidiary of NOA Group, has been awarded its long-anticipated trading licence by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA). The approval was granted at NERSA’s Executive Committee Meeting on 31 January 2025.
This licence greenlights the implementation of NOA Trading’s innovative business model and energy aggregation offering, designed to aggregate energy from geographically dispersed renewable generation facilities and supply it to customers across the country.
Unlike embedded generation and physical bilateral agreements, this approach offers far greater flexibility by allowing customers access to a mix of utility scale solar PV, wind and battery storage from multiple generation facilities—without the complexity of contracting with multiple generators or requiring offtakers to justify a generation facility dedicated to their own consumption.
“We believe that increased participation in the energy market will benefit the country as a whole while delivering significant contributions to commercial and industrial energy consumers in South Africa, which is particularly important in the face of global pressure to decarbonise and remain cost competitive,” said Karel Cornelissen, CEO, NOA Group.
“Our trading licence allows us to procure power from trusted independent power producers, alongside our own generation fleet and wheel this electricity to Eskom and municipal-connected customers nationwide”.
This model supports the deployment of renewable energy projects in high-yield areas, maximising generation potential and improving energy security, while meeting a critical need for green electrons and cost saving for NOA’s customers through increased competition and customer choice, as envisaged in the Electricity Regulation Act (ERA).
The first agreements concluded under NOA Trading’s new licence are two Generator Power Purchase Agreements (GPPA) for 140 MW and 94.5MW wind projects. Under these long-term agreements, NOA Trading will purchase power from the wind farm and supply a portfolio of large and small customers through a blend of flexible energy supply arrangements.
By enabling trading entities to procure additional energy from new generation facilities, this model helps Eskom reduce generation costs while contributing to grid strengthening, transmission, and distribution development. These benefits are further supported by self-build agreements between Independent Power Producers (IPPs) and the state utility.
“NOA Trading is now positioned to serve a national customer base, aggregating demand across the electricity supply sector. In line with the ERA, traders are licenced without geographic limitations, signalling a transition to a more open, competitive, and liberalised energy market—consistent with global regulations, including EU legislation, where trading activities are not restricted to specific locations or customer groups,” concluded Cornelissen.
NOTES:
Facts and timeline:
- Application submitted 12 April 2024
- Publicly advertised 30 Jun – 4 August 2024
- Public Hearing 04 Oct 2024
- Notice of the Electricity Subcommittee (ELS) Meeting 17 Dec 2024
- Trading Licence approved by NERSA, 31 Jan 2025
NOA Structure:
This trading licence is critical to the success of the NOA Group as its business is split into three main operating subsidiaries: (1) Assets, (2) Operations, and (3) Trading.
While Assets and Operations are chiefly concerned with NOA’s own generation facilities, Trading is the arm of the business which enables the business model – facilitating the purchase of renewable energy from NOA’s own generation fleet, but also from trusted third party IPPs and the onward sale of renewable energy to a blend of short, medium and long term energy supply agreements to various segments of the South Africa electricity supply sector. (i.e. the trading activities of NOA).
