Solvanta Renewables Business Plan › Section 1 › Executive Summary

Solvanta Renewables (Pty) Ltd is a Cape
Town-headquartered independent power producer (IPP) established to
develop, own, operate and manage a diversified portfolio of
utility-scale renewable energy infrastructure across South Africa. The
Company’s integrated platform spans five complementary business lines:
utility-scale solar PV, onshore wind, battery energy storage systems
(BESS), corporate power purchase agreements (PPAs) with flexible tenors,
and private energy wheeling across the national transmission network.
The business model is benchmarked on Mainstream Renewable Power, which
has built approximately 850 MW of renewable assets in South Africa under
the REIPPPP while assembling a development pipeline exceeding 12 GW,
evidence of both the depth of the opportunity and the executability of
the model.

South Africa’s electricity market is undergoing the most
consequential structural reform since electrification. A decade of load
shedding, peaking at an estimated 16.8 TWh of energy shed in 2023,
combined with Eskom tariff escalation running at roughly three times
CPI, the unbundling of the National Transmission Company of South Africa
(NTCSA), the removal of licensing thresholds for private generation, and
binding corporate decarbonisation commitments has created durable,
price-insensitive demand for reliable private renewable supply.
Registered private generation capacity has grown more than tenfold since
the 2022 licensing reforms, yet mid-market corporate demand for
flexible, shorter-tenor renewable contracts remains structurally
underserved by the large incumbents whose economics favour 15–20 year
utility PPAs.

Solvanta’s strategy targets precisely this gap. The Company will
scale from a first 50 MW solar project in FY2027 to an installed base of
1.8 GW by FY2031, comprising 1,080 MW of solar PV, 720 MW of onshore
wind and 400 MWh of battery storage. Energy delivery grows from 110 GWh
to 5.8 TWh, of which approximately 3.6 TWh is generated by owned assets
and 2.2 TWh represents wheeled third-party energy traded through
Solvanta’s licensed energy trading desk. Sponsor projections show
revenue rising from R120 million in FY2027 to R5.4 billion in FY2031,
with EBITDA of R2.1 billion (38.9% margin) in the terminal year
following a planned development-phase EBITDA loss of R80 million in
FY2027.

This Plan presents the sponsor case in full and subjects it to
independent analytical review. The independent financial model preserves
the sponsor’s headline revenue, EBITDA, capacity and volume trajectory
exactly, and re-derives all items below EBITDA, depreciation on a
commissioned-asset basis, cash and capitalised interest across the debt
programme, and South African corporate tax at 27% with assessed-loss
carry-forward. Six material findings emerge and are surfaced in analyst
callout boxes throughout this document rather than smoothed into the
narrative. The most consequential: the R9.5 billion headline raise is
the equity layer of a materially larger capital programme. Building 1.8
GW at benchmark unit costs requires approximately R34.1 billion of total
capital, implying roughly R21.0 billion of senior project debt and a
further R4.1 billion mezzanine or holdco facility in the peak FY2031
construction year.

Figure 1

On the sponsor case, the platform reaches an annualised run-rate
EBITDA of approximately R4.0 billion once the full 1.8 GW fleet
completes its first full operating year in FY2032. Valued at 10.0x
run-rate EBITDA, the platform supports an estimated equity IRR of
approximately 36% on the R9.5 billion invested; at a normalised 8.5x
underwriting anchor the IRR compresses to approximately 6%, and a
valuation on in-place FY2031 EBITDA would leave the equity under water.
Returns are therefore overwhelmingly a function of exit valuation basis
and delivery pace, a dependency analysed explicitly in the Investor
Returns section. The capital structure requires committed, not merely
pledged, tranche-1 equity at close: FY2027 is a funded-loss year and
every year of the plan window is loss-making at the net profit level as
depreciation and construction-programme interest outpace the ramping
EBITDA of a fleet that more than trebles every two years.

Solvanta’s request to the market is a R9.5 billion equity raise,
deployed across solar (R3.2 billion), wind (R2.8 billion), battery
storage (R1.6 billion), transmission and wheeling infrastructure (R900
million), development costs (R500 million) and working capital (R500
million), alongside mandates for approximately R21 billion of senior
project finance from the DFI and commercial bank market. The remainder
of this Plan sets out the market evidence, operating strategy, delivery
roadmap, full three-statement financial projections and risk analysis
supporting that request.

Confidential — this business plan is provided to prospective investors and lenders for evaluation purposes only and may not be reproduced or distributed without the written consent of Solvanta Renewables (Pty) Ltd.