A citrus farm with 22 power accounts is lining up 3 MWp of solar and a 6.6 MWh battery on one private line - the tariff is blank
On 21 October 2026 Rhino Energy Solutions described the project at a Cape Town solar and storage event. Nav.Energy funds it under a power purchase agreement, and RES is an equity partner. The account says the farm pays no capital upfront and the tariff sits below today's bill. No cents figure, no contract length, no farm name and no switch-on date are printed.
A farm that packs citrus and runs irrigation can carry a stack of electricity accounts. This one has 22. Each one bills fixed and network charges even when the pumps are quiet. The plan on the table is one private network, with solar and a battery, paid for as power rather than as a cheque for the kit.
Rhino Energy Solutions, a firm that builds and maintains solar plants, put the project in front of a room at Solar & Storage Live Cape Town. The Business of Money published that account on 21 October 2026. Reframed published a second account on 22 October. Rogan Davies, group chief executive, said energy on the farm "had moved from an overhead to a risk to the crop."
The 22 Eskom supply points feed irrigation pumps, boreholes, the packhouse, cold storage and staff housing. Use moves through the day and the season. Pumps can run overnight in summer. The packhouse and cold rooms are busy in harvest. Housing uses more power in the evening. RES says it started from the bills and the interval data for all 22 connections. Side by side, those accounts describe one farm load, billed 22 times.
A roof array on the packhouse would cut one bill. The other 21 connections, and their fixed charges, would stay. The design instead is a private mini-grid: a 3 MWp solar plant, 6.6 MWh of battery storage, and about 22 km of overhead line, so the loads sit on one network. Reframed prints the same sizes and says "around 22 kilometres." The company says the storage is sized so solar made in the day can run the evening and overnight pumping.
A battery only holds what solar or the grid puts into it. The account describes daytime solar as the charge for the night pumps. It does not print a rule that bars a charge from the grid. It does not print the battery's power in kilowatts, so a runtime at full push is not a figure on the page. 6.6 MWh is the size of the tank. The width of the hose is missing.
The rollout is described in two steps. Phase 1 is the step where the farmer can cancel 20 of the 22 Eskom supply points. Phase 2 removes the last two once the system has a track record on site. Reframed says RES has not said where the farm is, when construction finishes, or whether phase 1 is already running. It also says the accounts do not explain what backup remains once those Eskom connections are gone. Cold rooms and irrigation are the loads that make that gap matter.
Money. Nav.Energy funds the project under a power purchase agreement. RES is an equity partner in the project. The farmer is described as having no capital outlay, and as buying electricity at a tariff below what the farm pays today. RES builds and maintains the plant, and its operations team watches performance. The farmer pays for the energy received. Davies said: "In this project the funder and the EPC+M partner are both invested in the same PPA." EPC+M means the firm that engineers, buys, builds and maintains the plant. On the usual order of these jobs, he said the farmer is left "to stitch together the advice, the engineering, the contract and the funding, and carry the risk of the gaps between them."
What is not on the page. No cents per kilowatt-hour. No annual rise in the tariff. No length for this contract. Reframed says RES offers power purchase agreements that typically run 10 to 20 years, and that this farm's term is not disclosed. No savings figure. No name for who owns the kit when the agreement ends. The Business of Money calls a mini-grid of this scale a multi-million-rand asset and does not print the rand amount.
The same week, a bank platform for this shape of contract went live. Engineering News reported on 20 October 2026 that FNB, WesBank and RMB launched nav.energy for business, commercial and corporate customers. Three shapes. Own the plant: WesBank provides the finance, and the business keeps the long-term benefit and takes responsibility for operation and maintenance. Rent it: a fixed monthly amount, with ownership moving across at the end of the agreed term. Pay for the energy used: a managed arrangement or power purchase agreement, the system owned and operated for the customer, the customer paying only for the energy consumed. The citrus farm, as RES describes it, is that third shape. The launch note does not print 3 MWp, 6.6 MWh or 22 accounts. Those figures live in the farm accounts.
The launch note also prints RMB's book, which is a different scale from one farm. RMB has supported renewable-energy projects in South Africa for 14 years and has provided more than R46 billion in lending to government-led programmes and private-sector initiatives. Of RMB's R53.5 billion infrastructure lending and investment, 76% is related to renewable energy in South Africa. That 76% is a bank book. It is not this farm's tariff. The same note says support for households will follow. The live offer, in that 20 October report, is for businesses.
Analogy: 22 meters are 22 taxi meters on one property. The mini-grid is one road and a tank under the solar. The tank is printed as 6.6 MWh. The fare on the meter is the line the accounts leave blank.
Good: A named farm job, with a solar size, a battery size, a line length, a count of supply points, and a named way to pay that does not start with a capital cheque.
Bad: No tariff, no term, no savings, no site name, no date for power, no battery kilowatts, and no statement that the plant is already running. The line that the tariff sits below today's bill has no cents under it.
Ugly: Reading R46 billion, or 76% of a R53.5 billion book, as this farm's deal. Reading 6.6 MWh as a known number of night hours. Cancelling 22 Eskom accounts on a quote sheet before phase 1 has a track record, and before anyone has printed what covers the cold room if the tank is empty. A battery does not make power. It holds what the solar plant or the grid put in.
Soft next step: set the printed sizes next to the stack of bills, and keep the blank tariff, the blank term and the blank end-of-contract owner on the same sheet. A short consult at Sovryn Energy /consult if you want those blanks read against a site that pays more than one supply point.
Source: The Business of Money, 21 Oct 2026 - Funding solar starts earlier than the loan: RES at Solar & Storage Live Cape Town. Primary for the 21 October account of Rogan Davies, group chief executive of Rhino Energy Solutions, at Solar & Storage Live Cape Town with development partner Nav.Energy: 22 separate Eskom supply points for irrigation pumps, boreholes, the packhouse, cold storage and staff housing, each with fixed and network charges; pumps overnight in summer, packhouse and cold rooms in season, housing in the evening; bills and interval data for all 22 connections read as one farm load; a packhouse roof leaving 21 connections in place; a private mini-grid of a 3 MWp solar PV plant, 6.6 MWh of battery storage and about 22 km of overhead lines; storage sized so daytime solar can run evening and overnight pumping; phase 1 cancelling 20 of the 22 supply points and phase 2 removing the last two after a track record; Nav.Energy funding under a power purchase agreement with RES as equity partner; no capital outlay for the farmer; a tariff below what the farm pays today, with no cents printed; RES engineering, procurement, construction and maintenance, with the farmer paying for energy received; the mini-grid called a multi-million-rand asset with no rand amount printed; and Davies's lines that energy "had moved from an overhead to a risk to the crop," that the farmer is left "to stitch together the advice, the engineering, the contract and the funding, and carry the risk of the gaps between them," and that "the funder and the EPC+M partner are both invested in the same PPA." The account does not print battery kilowatts, a tariff, a contract length, a savings figure, a farm name or a switch-on date. Reframed, 22 Oct 2026 - A citrus farm is replacing 22 Eskom connections with its own solar mini-grid. Corroborates the 3 MWp, 6.6 MWh and about 22 km of line, the 22 accounts, phase 1 as 20 cancellations and phase 2 as the last two after a reliable operating record, Nav.Energy funding through a PPA and RES as an equity investor. Primary for the statements that RES has not disclosed the farm's location, the construction date, whether phase 1 is already operating, the backup once the Eskom connections are gone, the tariff, any annual rise, the length of this PPA, a savings figure, or who owns the plant at the end. Also primary for RES offering other PPAs that typically run 10 to 20 years, which is a general offer and not this farm's term. Engineering News, 20 Oct 2026 - FNB, WesBank, RMB launch energy for businesses company. Primary for the 20 October launch of nav.energy by FNB, WesBank and RMB, live for business, commercial and corporate customers, with households to follow; the three models (WesBank finance to own, with the customer taking operation and maintenance; a fixed monthly rent with ownership at the end of the agreed term; a managed arrangement or power purchase agreement where the customer pays only for energy consumed); RMB's 14 years in South African renewable-energy projects; more than R46 billion of lending to government-led programmes and private-sector initiatives; and 76% of RMB's R53.5 billion infrastructure lending and investment related to renewable energy in South Africa. The launch note does not print 3 MWp, 6.6 MWh, 22 accounts or this farm's tariff. R46 billion and the 76% book are not the farm contract.