The construction and deployment of an off-grid agricultural solar-plus-storage installation for the Belle Rive Farm, near Hertzogville, in the Free State, is 67% complete and set to be commissioned in October, says advanced solar system provider RenEnergy projects head Boeta Jordaan.

The project is reportedly South Africa’s largest off-grid agricultural solar-plus-storage installation in terms of battery energy storage capacity.

The 4.89 MWp ground-mounted solar PV array and 20 MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) have been engineered to eliminate grid dependency across irrigation, cold chain and processing operations over more than 2 000 ha of farmland.

As with all RenEnergy projects, the system design was informed by detailed load analysis rather than a standard commercial template.

“The PV mounting structure and module installation are largely completed, with good progress being made on the direct current/alternating current electrical work, the battery storage installation and the medium-voltage reticulation.”

The project is progressing out of bulk construction and into electrical integration and final installation, Jordaan adds.

Most of the work that must still be completed is electrical and medium voltage (MV) work, equipment installation, testing and commissioning.

“As we have progressed, some details have been refined around the electrical and MV reticulation design, including cable routing, equipment positioning, connection points between the PV plant, the BESS and the farm’s existing infrastructure,” with the laying of 17 km of MV reticulation having required “real coordination”, he adds.

Once the plant and BESS are commissioned and operational, Belle Rive will be an example of large-scale solar and battery storage improving energy resilience at a commercial farm.

The investment by Belle Rive’s owners was driven by compounding grid cost exposure.

State-owned power utility Eskom tariffs for direct customers increased by 8.76% in April,  after a 12.74% hike in April 2025, subsequent to increases of 12.72% in 2024 and 18.65% in 2023.

Electricity accounts for about 6% of total agricultural production input costs nationally, a figure that rises materially for operations with significant cold chain and irrigation load, says Jordaan.

Agricultural organisation Agri SA has cautioned that without structural intervention, sustained tariff escalation will push energy-exposed operations into financial distress.

“We had reached a point where the question wasn’t whether to invest in energy independence, but how quickly we could make it happen. Our operations run across a large area of farmland. . . there’s no room for power interruptions when you’re managing cold storage and irrigation at this scale,” says Belle Rive Farm owner Stanley de Beer.

Groundbreaking

Two of the project’s greatest challenges are its being established on a working farm and the size of the area, says Jordaan.

Rocky ground in parts of the PV area slowed some piling and mounting work, so the installation methods and sequencing had to be adjusted, all of which were managed through regular site inspections, close contractor coordination and reconfiguration as needed.

Early procurement, supplier collaboration and smart construction sequencing formed the core of the project’s pre-emptive strategy. This approach protected the project schedule from challenges involving long-lead electrical components, specialised equipment and key installation materials.

“Further, compliance work – including health and safety, statutory, electrical and grid – ran alongside construction, thereby maintaining safety and quality standards throughout,” comments Jordaan.

Making it Work

Jordaan says global renewable-energy technology developer Sungrow supplied the power- conversion and energy infrastructure, while renewable-energy solutions supplier Herholdt’s Group is one of the key equipment supply partners.

“A handful of other specialist suppliers cover the PV, battery storage, MV, electrical and communications scopes,” he adds, emphasising that RenEnergy selected its partners based on more than just equipment specifications, considering support and reliability, as well as compatibility with the plant’s control architecture.

“A big part of the engineering has been tying PV generation, BESS, power conversion, the MV network and site loads into one coordinated control system, and RenEnergy has adjusted the communications and control interfaces along the way to keep everything talking properly.”

Operations and maintenance will cover remote monitoring, preventative maintenance, alarm and fault management, performance monitoring and scheduled inspections across the plant.