Open Access Energy’s Energypro platform has completed its first month-end settlement for SolarAfrica’s 114MW SunCentral 1 solar plant, allocating 7.57GWh of electricity among three commercial and industrial customers under separate power purchase agreements (PPAs).
According to the company, the September settlement marks the first time a utility-scale, multi-buyer wheeling project in Africa has been settled using locally-developed software purpose-built for the process.
Wheeling allows privately generated electricity to be transported across the national grid to customers elsewhere on the network. While conventional arrangements typically link one power plant to one buyer, SunCentral 1 supplies multiple customers from a single facility, each with its own contractual terms, consumption profile and share of the electricity.
The arrangement requires the plant’s output to be allocated among customers, with consumption and contractual commitments reconciled at month-end to determine billing and settlement amounts.
Energypro processes the plant’s generation data, customer consumption at delivery points and the terms of each PPA.
It allocates electricity among buyers, prepares nomination information for submission to Eskom and generates settlement data used by SolarAfrica to bill customers.
The settlement comes as South Africa’s electricity market opens up to more private sector generation and wheeling arrangements involving multiple buyers.
These transactions require accurate allocation, metering, reconciliation and billing to ensure generators and customers receive the value stipulated in their contracts.
“South Africa is building a new electricity market, and it shouldn’t have to run on software designed for someone else’s grid,” says Gerjo Hoffman, CEO of Open Access Energy.
“We built Energypro here, for these rules. SunCentral 1 proves it works at scale.”
Hoffman says the monthly settlement process is a critical test of whether a wheeling arrangement is operating as intended.
“Energisation is the milestone everyone sees, and we were proud to mark it. But the real test of a wheeling deal comes every month-end, when the customer’s bill has to reflect exactly what was promised,” he adds.
“Every unit of electricity must be accounted for, with every party working from the same number. That is what Energypro does.”
Open Access Energy provides software and transaction services between generators, electricity buyers and the networks transporting the power. It does not own, trade or sell electricity.
SolarAfrica COO Vincent Labuschagne says reliable software is necessary as the independent power producer brings more generation capacity online and expands its wheeling offering to commercial and industrial customers.
“As an independent power producer that sells wheeling, we rely heavily on reliable software to serve our commercial and industrial customers as we continue to bring more of our utility-scale generation sites online,” he says.
SunCentral 1 reached commercial operation in September and is the first of three 114MW solar plants planned for the initial 342MW phase of SolarAfrica’s broader 1GW SunCentral development.
SunCentral 2 is in the later stages of construction, while construction of SunCentral 3 is expected to begin shortly.
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