Open Access Energy's Energypro platform has completed Africa's first utility-scale multi-buyer wheeling settlement, allocating 7.57 GWh across three C&I offtakers under SolarAfrica's 114 MW SunCentral 1 plant — making allocation accuracy, metering governance and Eskom nomination precision the new due-diligence imperatives for every shared-plant PPA in Q4 2026.

Africa's First Utility-Scale Multi-Buyer Wheeling Settlement: What It Means for Every C&I Offtaker in Q4 2026

A milestone quietly landed in South Africa's energy market this week — and its implications for every commercial and industrial (C&I) buyer considering a shared-plant Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) are far greater than the headline number suggests.

What Happened

Open Access Energy's Energypro platform has completed its first month-end settlement for SolarAfrica's 114 MW SunCentral 1 solar plant, allocating 7.57 GWh 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.

SunCentral 1, which reached commercial operation in September, shares a single plant's output across a group of customers on the national grid, each with its own power purchase agreement (PPA), its own pattern of use and its own share of the electricity.

How Energypro Actually Works

Each month, Energypro takes in the plant's generation, each customer's consumption at its delivery points, and the terms of each customer's PPA with SolarAfrica. It then allocates the plant's electricity across customers, starting with those who have fixed-volume commitments. It prepares the nomination information SolarAfrica submits to Eskom, and at month-end produces the settlement data SolarAfrica uses to bill each customer.

It acts as a neutral party between buyers and sellers, running the transactions that sit between a power plant, the grid and the customers it supplies.

Open Access Energy describes itself as South Africa's first multilateral wheeling platform that automates the matching of generation and consumption loads, allowing energy wheelers to execute accurate wheeling transactions seamlessly.

The SunCentral Project: Scale and Context

SunCentral is a large-scale solar PV plant located between Hanover and De Aar in the Northern Cape. The project will be developed in three phases. The 342 MW first phase will be delivered through a staged roll-out of three 114 MW facilities and will deliver renewable energy to various offtakers by wheeling it through South Africa's power grid. Phases 2 and 3 will increase SunCentral's capacity to 1 GW.

SolarAfrica reached financial close on the first 114 MW phase of its SunCentral solar project in the Northern Cape, securing R1.8 billion in funding from Investec and RMB. SolarAfrica has also reached financial close on SunCentral 3 — the third and final 114 MW facility of Phase 1 of its 1 GW utility-scale SunCentral solar development.

Similarly sized projects usually offered wheeling on a one-to-one basis, with one generation plant supplying one off-taker. However, SolarAfrica's project offers wheeling on a one-to-many basis, making renewable energy available to a wider pool of businesses in the country.

Why Allocation Accuracy Is Now the Settlement Wildcard

The complexity lies in the administration: wheeling transactions require metering data reconciliation, tariff calculations, network charge management, monthly settlement processing and regulatory compliance across multiple parties simultaneously.

These transactions require accurate allocation, metering, reconciliation and billing to ensure generators and customers receive the value stipulated in their contracts. In a shared-plant structure, any miscalculation in how generation is apportioned across buyers — even a fraction of a percentage point — compounds monthly into material billing disputes and potential PPA non-compliance.

"The real test of a wheeling deal comes every month-end, when the customer's bill has to reflect exactly what was promised," said Gerjo Hoffman, CEO of Open Access Energy. This is precisely the risk that automated, purpose-built settlement software is designed to eliminate — but it also means every C&I buyer must now scrutinise the settlement engine sitting behind their shared-plant PPA before signing.

Implications for C&I Offtakers and Commercial Property Owners

For commercial property owners and C&I energy buyers evaluating shared-plant PPAs in Q4 2026, the SunCentral 1 settlement event raises three critical due-diligence flags:

Metering governance: Energypro provides direct access to smart meter data from municipalities and utilities, enabling precise multilateral wheeling transactions. Buyers must confirm that their PPA includes enforceable metering standards and third-party audit rights at the settlement platform level — not just at the Eskom connection point.
Allocation methodology transparency: 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 algorithm that governs how shortfalls and overproduction are distributed among co-buyers is now a contractual risk variable that must be fully disclosed and stress-tested before signing.
Eskom nomination accuracy: Energypro allocates electricity among buyers, prepares nomination information for submission to Eskom and generates settlement data used by SolarAfrica to bill customers. Errors or delays in nomination submission can trigger grid penalties that are ultimately borne by offtakers — a risk that must be clearly allocated in the PPA's dispute resolution clause.

Relevance to Funded Solar, PPAs and BESS

The settlement comes as South Africa's electricity market opens up to more private sector generation and wheeling arrangements involving multiple buyers. For funded solar developers and BESS integrators, the Energypro milestone signals that the back-office infrastructure once considered the weakest link in multi-buyer wheeling is maturing rapidly.

With South Africa's regulatory environment increasingly supportive of third-party wheeling, the market is moving from pilot transactions to commercial scale. Future phases of large wheeling projects are expected to incorporate hybrid solar and battery energy storage, extending clean power beyond daylight hours. As BESS-backed wheeling structures emerge, settlement complexity will increase further — making the choice of settlement platform a bankability question, not just an operational one.

"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," said Vincent Labuschagne, Chief Operating Officer at SolarAfrica.

The SolarXgen Takeaway

The Energypro / SunCentral 1 live settlement is a landmark — but it also crystallises a new category of contract risk for every C&I buyer entering a shared-plant PPA. Allocation methodology, metering governance, Eskom nomination accuracy and month-end reconciliation are no longer abstract operational matters. They are now live, tested variables with real billing consequences. Any offtaker signing a multi-buyer wheeling PPA in Q4 2026 without stress-testing the settlement engine behind it is accepting undisclosed financial exposure. At SolarXgen, our funded solar and BESS structuring mandates now include settlement platform due diligence as a standard pre-signing deliverable.