Growthpoint takes stake in 5MW hydro power station

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22-10-2025
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Moneyweb
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JSE-listed property group Growthpoint has acquired a 30% stake in the 5MW Boston Hydro power plant situated near Clarens in the Free State.
This follows its earlier signing of a power purchase agreement (PPA) with licensed electricity trader Etana Energy that sees Growthpoint as offtaker of the full 30GWh the plant is expected to produce annually.
Boston Hydro reached commercial operations a week ago and is now delivering clean energy that is wheeled through the Eskom network to 10 of Growthpoint’s buildings in Sandton.
Tenants in these buildings can sign up for International Renewable Energy Certificates (I-RECs) to advance their own sustainability goals and report certified emissions reductions aligned with evolving International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) sustainability reporting standards – or trade their I-RECs. This market is still developing in South Africa.
The 195GWh PPA with Etana also includes energy from wind and solar plants that will come online later.
Together with its 80 rooftop solar installations, the full portfolio of renewable energy will supply about 40% of Growthpoint’s electricity needs.
The R400 million Boston hydroelectric plant was developed by Serengeti Energy in the Ash River, within the Lesotho Highlands Water Scheme. Serengeti, which will operate the plant, also operates three other smaller hydro-electric power stations in the same system.
The company, with its head office in Cape Town, operates 10 power plants (eight hydro and two solar) across five countries – South Africa, Uganda, Rwanda, Malawi and Sierra Leone. It also has a portfolio of projects in advanced development in Senegal, Ivory Coast and Zambia.
Consistent flow, even if there is a drought
Boston Hydro will deliver baseload energy consistently, day and night, to complement intermittent wind and solar energy.
The plant, constructed over two years by KMC Civils, uses the combination of the mass of waterflow and a height difference to convert the energy into electrical power.
It can pass up to 40 tonnes of water per second with a height difference of 16 metres.
The upstream Katse and Mohale dams have a storage capacity of approximately 2 300 MCM (million cubic metres) – enough for nearly three years’ supply.
The dams are fed purely by rainfall. This yields a unique long-term stable flow of water throughout the year, the company says. The plant will therefore not be subjected to drought conditions when there is no water flow.
All the water that flows into the power plant flows out again and there is zero impact on the quality, temperature, and composition of the water – which ultimately supplies the Gauteng area.
The PPA provides for a 5.5% tariff escalation per year for energy supplied by Boston Hydro, according to Dr Werner van Antwerpen, Growthpoint’s head of corporate advisory. Escalation from other renewable sources will be in line with CPI.
The company will in turn limit escalation to its tenants to 7% per year for the energy from Boston Hydro.
While the tariff does not differ much from the Eskom tariff at the moment, it will mitigate against high increases in Eskom tariffs and over a period deliver electricity considerably cheaper, in addition to price certainty and green attributes.
Growthpoint sees that as a competitive advantage as well as a strategy to retain tenants.
The property group took its first steps into rooftop solar generation in 2011 in partnership with Eskom, when it was still a very new concept in South Africa.
Since then, Growthpoint has invested more than R1 billion in solar energy locally. It has grown one of South Africa’s largest Small-Scale Embedded Generator (SSEG) renewable energy fleets and linked it to the transparent certification frameworks.
The property group’s 80 rooftop plants deliver 61.2MWp of capacity and generate a significant amount of clean electricity annually.
A further 7MWp of solar installations is in the pipeline for commissioning by mid-2026
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