A Free State commercial farming operation Belle Rive, spanning more than 2 000 ha, has appointed solar energy company RenEnergy Africa as its engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor to design and deliver what will become one of South Africa’s largest offgrid agricultural solar-plus-storage systems. The installation – a ground-mounted 4.89 MW solar PV array paired with a 20 MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) – is under construction. Once complete, the system will distribute power across the farming site through about 17 km of medium-voltage (MV) reticulation.