On a stretch of the Eastern Cape where the wind sweeps across the sea-battered coast, a forest of steel towers now carries electricity from a cluster of turbines to the industrial heart of Port Elizabeth. The towers are the visible proof of a 116-kilometre transmission line that Red Cap Energy, a South African renewable-energy developer, finished after more than a decade of planning and negotiation.
In a Moneyweb podcast, Mark Tanton, chief executive officer of Red Cap Energy, explained that the line was not a simple construction job. The wind resource in the Kouga region, an area that includes the towns of St Francis and the Tsitsikamma River, is among the strongest in the country, but the existing grid could not take the power to market. The national utility Eskom had originally intended to expand its own high-voltage network to serve a planned nuclear plant at Thyspunt, but those plans stalled. Without a reliable grid connection, the wind farm would have remained a stranded asset.
To solve the problem, Red Cap Energy turned to Eskom’s Independent Transmission Projects (ITP) programme. The ITP programme is a government-backed initiative that invites private companies to design, finance, build and operate transmission lines that the utility itself will later use. Eskom’s overall transmission plan calls for 14 000 kilometres of new line, of which about 1 000 kilometres are being offered to private developers in six separate projects. The 116-kilometre stretch that Red Cap built is one of those parcels.
Building the line required crossing 87 parcels of land owned by a mix of farmers, municipalities and private individuals. Each parcel meant a separate land-owner agreement, a process Tanton described as “a massive project” that involved “dozens and dozens of landowners”. The line runs parallel to an existing 132-kilovolt (132 kV) Eskom line that already links the Tsitsikamma River area to Port Elizabeth. While the 132 kV voltage level is smaller than the 400 kV lines that feed the country’s largest power stations, it is sufficient to move the wind-generated electricity to the city’s industrial customers.
Red Cap did not complete the project alone. The Italian utility Enel Green Power partnered on the development and took responsibility for the final, “very difficult stretch” of construction and commissioning. According to Tanton, Enel’s involvement helped push the project over the finish line, and the line is now operational.
The line’s first commercial customers are Sasol and Air Liquide, two large industrial users that have signed power-purchase agreements to buy the wind electricity. In industry terms, the arrangement is called wheeling, the transmission company moves electricity from the generator to the buyer, charging a fee for the use of the grid. Tanton noted that while Sasol and Air Liquide pay for the power, the electricity itself is generated in the Kouga region and travels to Port Elizabeth before being consumed.
For South African businesses, the story illustrates how private-sector participation can unlock renewable projects that would otherwise be blocked by grid constraints. The ITP programme offers a template for other independent power producers that face similar bottlenecks: secure a transmission right-of-way, negotiate land deals, and partner with an experienced developer to bring the line to completion. The success also shows that large industrial off-takers are willing to sign long-term contracts for clean energy, a trend that could encourage more investors to look at wind projects in the country’s wind corridors.
However, the project also highlights the challenges that remain. The need to negotiate with 87 separate land owners demonstrates the time-consuming nature of infrastructure development in a fragmented land-ownership landscape. Moreover, the reliance on a private transmission line means that the utility still has to integrate the new capacity into its broader system, a task that can be delayed by regulatory approvals or funding gaps.
Looking ahead, the Red Cap line may serve as a proof-of-concept for the remaining ITP parcels. If other developers can replicate the model, South Africa could see a gradual easing of the transmission bottlenecks that have contributed to load-shedding and limited the growth of renewable energy. For SME owners in the energy services sector, the emerging market for transmission-related contracts, from engineering design to land-acquisition consulting, could represent a new revenue stream.
In the meantime, the towers that now line the Eastern Cape horizon stand as a reminder that, even in a country where the grid is often a source of frustration, private initiative can still deliver tangible results.
