Vodacom has become the first company in South Africa to fully operationalise virtual wheeling, marking a step in opening up the grid to private-sector renewable energy.
The launch follows Vodacom’s August 2023 agreement with Eskom and comes four months after the Department of Electricity and Energy introduced a national wheeling framework, which sets out standardised, cost-reflective rules for third-party access to Eskom and municipal grids.
The solution was developed in partnership with independent power producer SOLA Group, supported by Mezzanine, a Vodacom subsidiary that built the digital platform underpinning the system. Renewable energy is supplied from SOLA’s solar power plant in Virginia, Free State.
The electricity will be used to power Vodacom’s mobile network infrastructure including base stations, data centres and switching facilities across the country. Vodacom operates more than 15 000 low-voltage sites in 168 municipalities. By aggregating data from all these sites through the virtual platform, the company can procure renewable energy for its entire network under a single agreement rather than separate deals for each location.
“Virtual wheeling is a game changer for companies like ours with distributed operations, removing long-standing barriers to renewable energy access,” says Sitho Mdlalose, CEO of Vodacom South Africa. “This achievement contributes to grid stability and demonstrates our commitment to accelerating the adoption of renewable energy.”
