South African Business 2024

Rooftop solar installations surged on news that the City of Cape Town would buy power from
individual households.
Africa’s transition from oil and coal to greener
technologies is not straightforward; it comes as
a mixture of grants, risk-sharing instruments and
concessional finance but it will allow South Africa
to fund projects that will help the country to move
away from fossil fuels without further stretching
Eskom’s precarious finances.
Eskom made a breakthrough in December 2022
when South Korean company Hyonsung Heavy
Industries broke ground at Elandskop signalling
the first project in Eskom’s Battery Energy Storage
System (BESS) project. The 8MW facility will move to
producing an additional 144MW in the second stage
of the project. In 2023, a larger project at Worcester,
Hex BESS, was launched. Another company that
will be involved in Phase 1 of the national rollout of
these projects is Chinese company Pinggao.
In Cape Town a Swedish firm has spent
$30-million setting up an assembly factory for
lithium batteries and Bushveld Energy, a subsidiary
of Bushveld Minerals, is producing vanadium battery
electrolyte at its factory in East London. An Eastern
Cape project involving nascent local utility Earth &
Wire expects to start delivering batteries in the first
half of 2024. US firm Ambri has the contract to deliver
a 300MW/1 200 MWh battery system for a combined
wind and solar system near Humansdorp.
Traditional sectors
Gold mining is declining in volumes (even while
prices rise), platinum group metals (PGM) prices
have gone off the highs experienced during
and immediately after Covid, but major activity
is still underway in the sector. Vedanta Zinc
International’s project in the Northern Cape may
the catalyst for the establishment of a Special
Economic Zone (SEZ) and an uptick in other
mining investment. Already, copper mines in that
province are being revived.
Sibanye-Stillwater, which quickly became a
major player in PGMs, continues to acquire assets
in the green metals and processing cluster while
Afrimat, best known for many years for concrete
and construction materials, has built up a much
more varied portfolio by buying mines in three
provinces. In June 2023 it went back to its roots
in a sense: the company’s Construction Materials
division was enlarged by the purchase of Lafarge
South Africa Holdings.
The biggest mining news in 2023 was that De
Beers Venetia Diamond Mine started producing.
This long-term conversion project of the mine to an
underground mine will extend its life to 2045 and
perhaps beyond.
Grain crops such as maize, wheat, barley
and soya beans are among the country’s most
important crops. Only rice is imported. Wine, corn
and sugar are other major exports. Basing economic
growth on a devaluing currency is not the best
long-term method of boosting economic growth,
but high-value agricultural exports and increased
numbers of high-spending international tourists
hold some promise for helping to get the South
African economy back on a growth path. ■
SOUTH AFRICAN BUSINESS 2024
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PHOTO: Versofy Solar