African Clean Energy Developments (“ACED”), Energy Infrastructure Management Services (“EIMS Africa”) and NOA Group Trading (“NOA”) are extremely pleased to announce that financial close has been reached, and construction commenced, on the 140MW Ishwati Emoyeni Wind Farm, with NOA as the offtaker.
The project was led, co-sponsored and developed by ACED, with the African Infrastructure Investment Managers (“AIIM”) managed IDEAS Fund and Reatile as shareholders. The IDEAS Fund is one of South Africa’s largest domestic infrastructure equity funds. Standard Bank South Africa acted as lead arranger.
NOA received its trading licence from NERSA on the 31st of January 2025, enabling the business to buy all the renewable energy generated by the Ishwati Emoyeni Wind Farm.
The Ishwati Emoyeni Wind Farm and the ACED-EIMS-IDEAS-Reatile generation consortium was the first sizeable renewable energy project to sign a PPA (Power Purchase Agreement) with renewable energy aggregator, NOA. The Ishwati Emoyeni Wind Farm is a R4.9 billion project which will start generating electricity in 2026. The project comprises 32 Vestas 4.5MW wind turbines, and is adjacent to two of the consortium’s other projects of the same size: the Umsinde Emoyeni and Khangela Emoyeni Wind Farms.
“This marks the first large-scale renewable project in South Africa to reach financial close with an energy trader as the offtaker,” said Karel Cornelissen, CEO of NOA Group. “With NOA Trading, the trading arm of NOA Group, now holding its trading licence, we are authorised to purchase electricity from Ishwati, other third-party IPPs and NOA’s own generation facilities, aggregate it, and wheel it through the Eskom grid to geographically dispersed offtakers across the South African market.”
“We’re delighted to have closed and commenced construction on this complex and pioneering project – the first trader offtake project at scale. It’s the long term PPAs we sign, such as that with NOA here, that bring these projects to life. We are grateful for the opportunity to serve NOA, so that they can in turn do so for their growing list of energy customers, all the while driving sustainable development and job creation – at the site locally, and where the renewable energy is used. Such is the power of the green electron!” said James Cumming, CEO of ACED.
“Reaching financial close on this wind project is a testament to the power of collaboration and innovation in South Africa. Together with our long-term partners AIIM, ACED and EIMS, we are propelling South Africa towards a sustainable future and energy security” said Sunette Smith, Business Development Executive of Reatile Group.
“Together with our partners, we are proud to be the sole mandated lead arranger to this first of a kind project, presenting a long-term solution and response to the market liberalisation in SA. NOA is facilitating not wind or solar energy to end users but rather a profile of green electrons achieved by aggregating multiple generators (wind, solar and battery projects) and providing this to multiple end users under more flexible arrangements” said Standard Bank Executive: Project Finance, Energy and Infrastructure Finance, Sherrill Byrne.
The project would not have been possible without the continuous support of shareholders, AIIM-managed, IDEAS Fund, and Reatile, along with Werksmans Attorneys, A&O Shearman, DLA Piper, Capic, Bastion and Lockton in their various capacities as advisors, all of whom were instrumental in achieving financial close on the project. ACED will continue to provide construction management services, whilst EIMS Africa will act as the operations phase management services provider to the project.
This deal marks the ACED and EIMS Africa teams having brought over 600MW of hydro, wind and solar projects to financial close and construction in the last 24 months, enhancing the consortium’s collective drive to be a leader in renewable energy development and operation in South Africa and across the continent. This is further to over a gigawatt of projects they have already developed and operate via the South African Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP).
