A family-owned farm, about 3km from Malelane in Mpumalanga now faces an energy secure future thanks to their decision to keep production on track and reduce escalating energy costs, resulting in a sizeable solar-powered solution.

Renald Radley, who co-manages the farm with his brothers Wilscott and Henno, said load shedding was the primary reason they had decided to go solar with the estate’s 1 900 hectares of land.

“Load shedding was a significant obstacle that created uncertainty and disrupted our daily farming activities. Traditional power sources and outages impacted our ability to irrigate crops, power essential equipment, and maintain productivity,” Radley said.

The farm, which has been in the family for about 80 years, produces a variety of farming operations, including 157 hectares of citrus orchards; 536 hectares of high sucrose-producing sugar cane; 34 hectares of mango orchards; and an Nguni cattle stud of 105 breeding cows.

Radley said going solar with the support of Standard Bank had meant that this uncertainty and the losses that occurred when infrastructure had to be repaired and power was lost for days at a time and resetting, and potential damage to automated systems had also faded into the background.

The solar plant at Radley Landgoed was unique in the sense that 80% of the solar panels – a massive 3 350 square metres were located on the surface of one of the estate’s largest irrigation dams, making the project Mpumalanga’s most significant agricultural power project and the only “water-borne” plant in the region, and possibly South Africa.

Recently switched on, power reaches vital parts of the farming operation through a 7km network of custom-built pylons.

Yaseen Guman, Standard Bank’s head of business banking client coverage in Mpumalanga, said the project – financed in partnership with Standard Bank’s business and commercial banking (BCB) division – was completed in a year.

“It can produce up to 1.8GWh of power and can take the estate, including the farm homesteads, support buildings, and staff quarters entirely off-grid when necessary,” Guman said.

“Conservative estimates show that the project costs will be amortised in about 10 years, and the installation will have a lifespan of about 30 years. Savings began accruing the day the plant went operational, and will increase over time as energy costs increase annually. Perhaps more important to our clients is the fact that production losses and the costs of fuelling generators, which increased operating costs by a substantial amount each year are now a thing of the past,” he pointed out.

The location of solar panels on the irrigation dam offered several advantages –no potentially productive land has had to be set aside for the solar array, and clean energy was generated while irrigation capacity was maintained at optimum-levels.

Other benefits included easy maintenance and the fact that the dam water provided cooling for the panels, and that workers conducting panel-cleaning and repair operations had easy access through a series of walkways between rows of panels.

Guman said arranging the finance for a “water-borne” solar plant was a first for Standard Bank’s BCB division and reflected their commitment to providing finance for sustainable solutions that encourage the acquisition of renewable-energy projects.

“The Radley Landgoed project joined our recent involvement in a farm-based private hydro-electric plant in the Eastern Cape in the ‘firsts’ column of BCB’s growing book on the development of renewable-energy projects,” Guman said.

Besides the direct advantages that the solar power installation brought to the farm, additional marketing benefits could accrue. Much of the produce grown on the farm was packed at the nearby Malelane Citrus Cooperative, where it was packed for export.

Standard Bank said because much of Radley Landgoed’s output could benefit from the carbon credits offered by the EU for produce grown with green energy, better prices and increased sales volumes could be achieved. “This is good news for a community that relies on agriculture for much of its income and employment,” Guman added.

“The Radley Landgoed project, like many others undertaken in the agricultural sector, reflects our approach of investing in partnerships that are key to growth, financially inclusive, support supply chain efficiency, and minimise food wastage by addressing deficiencies in the energy grid,” the financier said.

While load shedding has been suspended for more than four months in South Africa, the rapidly increasing electricity tariffs that far outstrip inflation, and worries about future energy security were said to be still causing sleepless nights for farmers.

Professor Raymond Parsons, an economist at North West University’s Business School recently told Business Report that soaring electricity costs were now also an integral part of the Sout Africa energy challenge, as the country moved through its electricity transition.

He said after several years of steep price increases, businesses and consumers were struggling to afford the high cost of electricity. “Disposable income is being eroded, especially for the poor, and needs to be addressed,” he said.

BUSINESS REPORT