ENERGY
Virtual Power Plants
The next phase of the energy story isn’ t about one big fix, but about hundreds of smaller systems.
By Shingai Samudzi, CEO of Asoba
South Africa entered 2025 in unfamiliar territory: almost a full year without load shedding. For a country whose economic planning, household budgets, and business continuity strategies have been shaped by power cuts since 2007, uninterrupted supply marks a structural turning point. The key question is whether this stability is sustainable and what it reveals about the future of the country’ s electricity system.
From crisis response to long-term strategy Many of the improvements are the result of decisions made outside the state, particularly among commercial and industrial energy users. During the crisis years, private sector investment in solar, battery storage, wheeling, and self-generation shifted from“ nice to have” to a survival mechanism. Retail centres, logistics operators, manufacturers, data centres and mining companies accelerated their energy independence programmes, reducing strain on the national grid.
That momentum has not slowed. The combination of falling solar pricing, cheaper lithium-ion storage, improved project financing models, and policy reforms allowing self-generation above 100 MW has permanently changed South Africa’ s energy mix. Thousands of megawatts of embedded generation have quietly come online in the last three years, significantly stabilising supply.
The rise of distributed energy and virtual power plants What began as isolated individual projects is now evolving into coordinated networks. The fastestgrowing trend in South Africa’ s energy transition is the emergence of Virtual Power Plants( VPPs), technology systems that connect multiple distributed energy assets and operate them as a single flexible power source.
Instead of relying on one large plant, a VPP aggregates the spare capacity of dozens or hundreds of smaller sites, solar rooftops, batteries, factories with excess generation, or even commercial buildings that can shift demand during peak times. Using artificial intelligence, the system can release stored power into the grid, absorb excess energy to prevent overload, or balance frequency in real time. This flexibility is what makes renewables viable at scale.
58 sabusinessintegrator. co. za