The Naos 1 Financial Close Is Now the Wheeling-at-Scale Proof Point Every C&I Buyer Must Use to Benchmark Their Next Hybrid PPA: What a 300 MW Solar, 660 MWh BESS Project Purpose-Built for Private Grid Wheeling, Backed by Sasol and Air Liquide Off-Take, Means for Dispatchable Renewable Pricing, Credit-Risk Allocation, and Multi-Buyer Contract Architecture in H2 2026

Why Naos 1 Changes Everything for C&I Wheeling PPAs in H2 2026

South Africa's private power market crossed a structural threshold in February 2026. SOLA Group reached financial close on Naos-1, described as the country's first utility-scale solar PV and battery energy storage project purpose-built for wheeling power to private end-users across the grid. For commercial and industrial (C&I) energy buyers still deliberating over their next PPA, this is no longer a headline to bookmark — it is a benchmark to act on.

The Project in Numbers: What You Are Actually Benchmarking Against

Located near Viljoenskroon in South Africa's Free State, Naos-1 combines 300 MW of solar PV generation with 660 MWh of battery storage to deliver reliable, dispatchable renewable power to major private businesses. The full installed solar capacity is 435 MWp, with the 300 MW AC figure reflecting contracted output to offtakers.

SOLA Group did not disclose the project cost, saying only that the project is considered to be the largest wheeling project by value in South Africa. As the largest privately contracted hybrid renewable energy initiative to reach financial close in South Africa, Naos-1 highlights the country's shift toward more flexible, market-driven, and low-carbon power systems.

On the storage side, Envision Energy's scope covers design, manufacturing, commissioning, operation, and maintenance of the storage system, under a 25-year long-term service agreement signed with SOLA Group. That 25-year LTSA is a critical data point: it aligns the BESS maintenance horizon directly with the PPA term, eliminating residual technology-risk gaps that plague shorter O&M contracts.

SOLA Group said the Naos-1 financial close brings its portfolio of operating and under-construction projects to more than 1 GW DC, with 600 MW already operational.

The Offtaker Architecture: What Sasol and Air Liquide Actually Proved

The project is supported by 25-year power purchase agreements with Sasol and Air Liquide, two major industrial energy consumers in South Africa. The significance of these two anchor offtakers goes beyond their balance sheets. In April 2021, Air Liquide and Sasol launched the largest corporate effort in South Africa to procure a total of 900 MW of renewable energy for their operations in Secunda, with an allocation of 500 MW to Sasol and 400 MW to Air Liquide. Naos-1 is the culmination of that five-year procurement journey — meaning the contract architecture, due diligence framework, and wheeling framework used here have already survived the most rigorous industrial scrutiny available in the South African market.

"This project forms part of our broader transformation strategy towards a low-carbon energy portfolio and this 300 MW is a key milestone in advancing our transition towards a sustainable future," said Dr Sarushen Pillay, Executive Vice President of Sasol's Business Building, Strategy and Technology Business.

For C&I buyers, the lesson is not that you need to be Sasol-sized to sign a wheeling PPA. The lesson is that the contractual playbook — multi-buyer structure, transmission wheeling agreement, BESS dispatch obligations, credit support mechanisms — has now been stress-tested and financed at the highest possible load-profile complexity. Nicolas Poirot, Africa, Middle East and India CEO at Air Liquide, called the transaction "a major strategic step forward using a hybrid solution to set a new benchmark for reliable, firm renewable energy at scale."

Dispatchable Pricing: The Number That Rewrites Your Eskom Comparison

The PPA tariff was not publicly disclosed, but SOLA MD Commercial Jonathan Skeen told Engineering News that the tariff is well below prevailing Eskom rates, and highly competitive relative to tariffs from new wind projects, but with higher certainty of contracted energy volumes and timing. "The project also achieves much higher buyer savings than a standalone PV-only project of the same size," he said.

This pricing signal matters enormously in the current Eskom environment. The standard prices for Eskom direct customers were adjusted with an annual increase of 8.76% effective 1 April 2026. Prices for municipal bulk purchases are adjusted by 9.01% effective 1 July 2026. Compounded over a 25-year PPA term, even a modest fixed escalation clause in a private PPA results in exponentially lower cumulative energy spend than remaining on Eskom's tariff trajectory.

Long-dated PPAs with fixed escalation clauses insulate off-takers from the volatility of Eskom tariff hikes. The dispatchability premium in a hybrid solar-plus-BESS PPA — the ability to receive power during evening peak periods rather than only during daylight hours — is precisely what converts a solar PPA from a partial hedge into a full energy strategy. While traditional renewable projects often struggle to meet peak evening demand, Naos-1's hybrid design allows it to store low-cost solar energy and dispatch it when the grid needs it most, providing Sasol and Air Liquide with a reliable supply of clean energy at competitive tariffs.

Wheeling-at-Scale: The Regulatory Framework Your Deal Must Navigate

Naos-1 is structured as a wheeling project, transmitting power generated in the Free State across Eskom's grid to industrial offtakers elsewhere in the country. This cross-provincial delivery model — Free State generation, Mpumalanga and Gauteng consumption — is the most demanding wheeling architecture available in South Africa, involving the National Transmission Company South Africa (NTCSA) network over hundreds of kilometres.

Understanding how Eskom's wheeling credit mechanism works is non-negotiable for any C&I buyer structuring a similar deal. The traditional wheeling model uses a credit mechanism where the Wholesale Electricity Pricing System (WEPS) tariff is credited to the customer account for wheeled energy. If an IPP or trader offers a PPA value lower than the WEPS value, it will reduce the customer's overall utility account.

Critically, the FY2027 tariff revision introduced a structural change C&I buyers must price into their models: the portion of the Generation Capacity Charge (GCC) included in the energy charge is excluded from the energy credit provided under wheeling and net-billing. This means the net savings calculation for wheeling deals signed or renegotiated after April 2026 must be modelled against the revised WEPS credit baseline — not the pre-April 2026 equivalent. Any developer or energy advisor quoting you savings based on outdated WEPS assumptions is introducing material error into your business case.

Supported by South African institutions, including DBSA, and developed in collaboration with Sasol and Air Liquide, Naos-1 aims to set a new benchmark for utility-scale solar-plus-storage wheeling to private end-users. The DBSA's involvement confirms that development finance institution (DFI) appetite for private wheeling projects is active — a financing signal that should give smaller C&I buyers confidence that the capital stack for replicable projects is fundable.

Multi-Buyer Contract Architecture: Four Lessons for Your Next PPA

Naos-1's two-anchor-offtaker structure — Sasol and Air Liquide sharing a single hybrid generation asset — is the template C&I buyers should be studying. Here is what it teaches:

• Credit-risk blending works. Pairing two investment-grade industrial counterparties across a single generation asset allows the developer to underwrite a 25-year debt stack without relying on a single offtaker's balance sheet. Smaller C&I buyers can replicate this logic by aggregating demand across multiple tenants or facilities into a single PPA vehicle.
• BESS dispatch obligations must be contractually specified. In a hybrid PPA, the buyer's right to dispatchable power is only as good as the contractual obligation on the developer to dispatch it. Your PPA must define minimum dispatch windows, state-of-charge floors, and curtailment compensation clauses — all of which Naos-1's complexity forces to be explicit.
• Wheeling agreement sequencing is critical. The wheeling agreement with NTCSA must be in place before financial close, not after. Katherine Persson, Managing Director of SOLA Assets, highlighted that reaching financial close on schedule for a project of this scale, novelty, and complexity demonstrates SOLA's track record in delivering clean energy to partners on time and to budget. That speed was only possible because the wheeling framework was negotiated in parallel with the PPA.
• 25-year BESS O&M alignment is a buyer's right, not a luxury. Insist that your PPA includes a back-to-back LTSA between the developer and the BESS OEM — coterminous with your off-take term. Naos-1's 25-year Envision LTSA is the market standard as of mid-2026.

What C&I Buyers Must Do Before Year-End 2026

Naos-1's commercial operation date is targeted for 2028. Construction is underway now. The window to negotiate comparable project structures — with similar wheeling corridor availability, DFI support appetite, and BESS pricing — is open but not indefinite. With Africa recording nearly 970 MW of utility-scale solar commissioned in Q1 2026 alone — exceeding total 2025 additions — grid congestion is a growing constraint. Early movers will secure the best wheeling corridors.

SOLA Group has stated a longer-term target of 2 GW of solar capacity and 5 GWh of storage by 2030. The pipeline behind Naos-1 is real and competitive. C&I buyers who move now can negotiate from a position of scarcity value — before that pipeline matures and developers gain pricing leverage.

Your immediate action checklist:

• Remodel your Eskom baseline using the April 2026 tariffs and the revised WEPS credit structure — not pre-April assumptions.
• Audit your load profile for dispatch compatibility — identify what percentage of your consumption falls in evening peak windows (18h00–21h00) to quantify the BESS premium you should be paying for.
• Demand a 25-year LTSA clause in any hybrid PPA you sign — coterminous with the off-take term and naming the BESS OEM explicitly.
• Engage a wheeling-experienced IPP or energy trader who can confirm active NTCSA wheeling capacity on the corridor relevant to your generation source.
• Explore multi-buyer aggregation if your individual demand is below 5 MW — pooling with neighbouring facilities or a property portfolio creates the offtake scale developers need to finance a dedicated wheeling project.

The Bottom Line

Naos-1 is not just a record-breaking project announcement. It is a fully financed, under-construction proof point that dispatchable renewable power — delivered via private grid wheeling, backed by investment-grade industrial offtakers, and maintained over a 25-year horizon — is commercially executable in South Africa right now. "Naos-1 reflects a new generation of energy infrastructure, one that is flexible, scalable, and aligned with the needs of modern power markets. Through collaboration with strong technology partners, it helps unlock new pathways for private-sector participation and advances the development of a more resilient and future-ready energy system."

Every C&I buyer negotiating a PPA in H2 2026 should open that negotiation with Naos-1 on the table — not as aspiration, but as the minimum acceptable standard.