Africa's Largest Solar Farm Switches On in the Northern Cape

Africa's largest solar photovoltaic installation, the 1.5 gigawatt De Aar Mega Solar project in the Northern Cape, was officially commissioned at a ceremony attended by President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Scale and Capacity

The project covers 4,200 hectares of the Karoo — an area larger than Barbados — and comprises 2.4 million individual solar panels. At peak output it can power approximately 1.5 million average South African households. Paired with a 600 MW battery storage system, it can provide reliable power through the evening peak demand period.

The Road to Commissioning

The project took four years to construct and employed 12,000 workers at peak, over 80% of them from within 100 kilometres of the site. Three local municipalities have negotiated community benefit agreements securing a combined R45 million per year in royalties for local schools, clinics, and roads.

Grid Impact

Eskom CEO Dan Marokane said the commissioning meant South Africa now had "genuine headroom" in its generation system for the first time in a decade and confirmed there were no plans to implement any form of load-shedding for the foreseeable future.