Solvanta Renewables — Regulatory & Licensing Framework

The applicable regime and the wheeling frameworks underpinning Solvanta.

Solvanta Renewables Business PlanSection 13 › Regulatory & Licensing Framework

Section 13 · Business Plan

Regulatory & Licensing Framework

The applicable regime and the wheeling frameworks underpinning Solvanta.

Applicable regime

Instrument Relevance to Solvanta Status/requirement
Electricity Regulation Act & ERA Amendment Act 2024 Legal basis for private generation, trading, open access Generation registration per project; trading licence for TradeCo
NERSA registration All generation facilities regardless of size Administrative registration; 19-day standard processing
NERSA trading licence TradeCo’s aggregation and resale of energy Application FY2027; precedents exist (multiple licensed traders)
Grid Code compliance Connection conditions, fault ride-through, curtailment Per-project compliance testing at commissioning
NEMA / EIA regulations Environmental authorisation per site 12–18 month EIA cycles; specialist studies
Water Use Licences Panel washing, construction water Per site where applicable
Land use / rezoning Municipal consent on agricultural land Per site; concurrent with EIA
B-BBEE codes Ownership, procurement, enterprise development 30% Black ownership at project level; community trusts
Carbon Tax Act Customer-side driver; offset generation Renewable energy premium and offsets enhance customer economics

Wheeling frameworks

Third-party wheeling operates under use-of-system agreements with
Eskom/NTCSA at transmission level and with individual municipalities at
distribution level. Transmission wheeling is mature; municipal wheeling
remains uneven, with leading municipalities (Cape Town, Ekurhuleni,
eThekwini, George) operating published frameworks while others lag.
Solvanta’s customer targeting weights transmission-connected and
leading-municipality loads in the early years, expanding as the ERA
Amendment Act’s open-access provisions standardise distribution
wheeling. Use-of-system charges of R0.24–R0.28/kWh on delivered owned
energy are carried as a direct cost in the financial model and passed
through contractually where market practice allows.

ANALYST FINDING — Trading licence is a gating dependency
for 37% of terminal-year volume

The wheeled third-party trading book that reconciles the sponsor’s
volume trajectory requires TradeCo’s NERSA trading licence, targeted for
FY2027–FY2028. Licensed precedents exist and NERSA has approved multiple
traders since 2023, so approval probability is high, but timing risk is
real, and the licence conditions (credit support, settlement systems
audit) require operational capability that must be built in parallel. A
12-month licence delay defers approximately R60–R80 million of
FY2028–FY2029 fee revenue and, more materially, delays the
customer-relationship flywheel on which FlexPower cross-sell
depends.

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.