Transnet’s East London Solar Plant Still Has No Public Winner

TNPA has not named a winner for the 3 MW solar plant at East London harbour. The August 2024 request asked a contractor to design, build and run a grid-tied carport and rooftop array with a 1.5 MWh battery for seven years. More than two years later the live energy bid on the same West Bank is a 25-year LNG terminal, and the auto berth Mercedes-Benz had sought since 2019 is the harbour kit that actually opened.

East London’s 3MW Solar Plant Still Has No Winner

Transnet National Ports Authority published the request on 2 August 2024 under tender TNPA/2024/02/0033/55398/RFP. The job was to design, including environmental permits, then build, test, commission, operate and maintain a 3 MW photovoltaic plant at the Port of East London. Two years were set aside for construction and five for operations.

Acting chief executive Advocate Phyllis Difeto said the array would cut energy costs and emissions by widening the port’s mix. The hardware was to be a grid-tied carport solar photovoltaic system plus rooftop generation. Difeto placed the work inside a national ports programme and the Carbon Neutral Government Programme, which asks public entities to be carbon neutral by 2050.

The Ports Authority is actively working towards climate change resilience, mitigation, and adaptation by deploying cleaner and cheaper energy solutions, in line with the Carbon Neutral Government Programme, which requires public entities to be carbon neutral by 2050, and the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) strategy which advances safer economies for net zero emissions.

Advocate Phyllis Difeto, Acting Chief Executive, TNPA statement

A compulsory briefing sat at 10:00 on 20 August 2024 at the EMD Building on the West Bank, at the corner of Dr Zahn and Nuffield Road. Bid records list a closing time of 16:00 on 31 October 2024. No preferred bidder has been named in the months since that door shut.

THE EAST LONDON SOLAR CLOCK

1. 2 August 2024: TNPA publishes the 3 MW solar and battery request for the river port.
2. 20 August 2024: Compulsory briefing for bidders at the West Bank EMD Building.
3. 31 October 2024: Tender listing records the close at 16:00, with no later public award.
4. 16 September 2026: TNPA invites 25-year bids for a small-to-medium LNG terminal on the same West Bank.

Buffalo City’s Samkelo Ngwenya called the 2024 green-energy push a positive step and a needed investment, while noting the metro sells electricity and would not push customers off its grid. Border Kei Chamber of Business director Lizelle Maurice said cheaper harbour power would cut the cost of doing business and hoped spare output might feed the city mix. Those hopes still sit on a contract that has not been awarded.

Mercedes Waited Six Years for a Deeper Berth

The piece of East London kit that did land is not a solar farm. In April and May 2025 TNPA completed a separate R60 million project to deepen and strengthen the automotive berth on the West Quay, a different R60 million from the desalination contract signed a year earlier.

Mercedes-Benz South Africa, which ships the C-Class from the river port, had been in talks with Transnet on harbour and precinct upgrades since 2019. The finished work evened berth depth at 10.5 m chart datum along a 550 m quay, so two car carriers longer than 200 m can lie alongside at once. TNPA says that doubled design berth capacity to 790,000 automotive units a year, a physical berth rating, not the lower throughput target still sitting in the group’s capital plan.

In August 2024 the ports authority also set out a five-year plan of almost R25bn to expand and reposition the ports, including a revamp of the automotive terminals in East London, Gqeberha and Durban. Difeto, speaking at the berth commissioning, said the deeper quay was a reply to global shipping demand and a chance to put more investment through a port that can now take the largest pure car carriers in the world fleet.

Transnet Port Terminals later said its car division was running 17% ahead of the prior year eight months into 2025/26. In April 2025 the East London car terminal loaded 252 units an hour against a 180-unit target, and loaded-unit rates at East London were up 17% by the end of September. The quay Mercedes asked for is in the water. The solar canopy that was meant to sit over the same precinct is not.

How Many Cars Still Move Through the River Port?

East London is still the harbour Mercedes uses for C-Class exports, and that factory is why a 3 MW array, a desalination plant and a deeper berth were packaged together. The plant, part of the global C-Class network since the current generation launched in 2021, builds left- and right-hand-drive C-Class cars for export markets. Mercedes lists 2,400 employees as of December 2024. More than 90% of output leaves the country.

EAST LONDON C-CLASS PLANT

• 2024 output: The factory built 70,000 vehicles, after about 88,000 the year before.
• Payroll: Headcount stood at 2,400 in December 2024, after about 700 manufacturing jobs were cut in June 2024 when the plant dropped from three shifts to two.
• US shipments: South African vehicle exports to the United States fell from 24,682 units in 2024 to 4,136 in 2025, an 83.2% drop, almost all of them C-Class cars from this plant.
• Stops: Vehicle making was halted in June and July 2025, then restarted on two shifts; a facelifted C-Class was confirmed for the line in August 2026 after a R13bn investment in the current generation.

When those job cuts were first tabled in June 2024, Mercedes-Benz South Africa listed weak macro conditions and prolonged port problems among the reasons. The berth upgrade that followed in 2025 answers part of that complaint. It does not restore the US volume that tariffs then took away, and it does not switch the harbour onto its own solar supply.

Transnet’s 2025 annual report still plans to lift East London auto handling from 135,000 fully built units to 185,000 in stages, a throughput path well below the 790,000-unit design rating of the rebuilt quay. The room on the berth is there. The cars have to exist, and the lights and fresh water have to stay on while they roll.

The Desalination Plant Is Still in Environmental Review

Power was only half of the 2024 utilities story. In April 2024 TNPA awarded a R60 million, seven-year contract to Sunwater East London Joint Venture, a pairing of Norland Civil Engineers and Contractors and Impact Water Solutions, to build and run a solar-powered seawater desalination plant, the first across the eight commercial ports. The signing pointed to just over 100 jobs and a first-stage yield of 0.5 megalitres a day of drinking-quality water. Difeto said the aim was to cut reliance on outside freshwater and to harden utilities by 2029.

That contract did not put pipes in the ground. Draft environmental papers circulated in 2025 describe a reverse-osmosis plant scaled to two megalitres of potable water a day, starting at about 500 cubic metres and rising to 2,000, drawing some 5,500 cubic metres a day from the Buffalo River estuary and storing product in a 1 ML tank. Power would be a hybrid of solar and municipal supply, with spare output held in batteries at the plant. The environmental application was lodged on 27 February 2025. The final scoping report went in on 14 April 2025. The final impact report was due on 6 January 2026.

TNPA has not announced that construction has started. Black Business Forum president Luthando Bara had praised the 2024 solar turn as a cut in the port’s carbon load and a relief for the grid. Premier Oscar Mabuyane, opening the legislature in Bhisho that winter, said the province wanted clean energy infrastructure so factories could run. The desalination file is still the kind of paper a plant needs before a pump turns.

Richards Bay Took the First 20 MW

East London’s 3 MW bid was never a stand-alone green gesture. Difeto’s statement nested it in TNPA’s Renewable Energy Purchase Programme, which is meant to put about 100 MW across eight seaports: Richards Bay, Durban, Saldanha, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, East London, Mossel Bay and Ngqura. The three plants named in that 2024 round add to 30 MW, or 30% of the headline target.

NAMED PLANTS IN THE 100 MW ROUND

Amulet, with LTM Energy Group, won a seven-year design-build-operate deal after an RFP that opened in May 2023. Moshe Motlohi, then TNPA’s Eastern Region ports managing executive, said the Richards Bay plant would cut coal-power emissions and give the port a cheaper, steadier supply. Design and build were due to start in June 2024. East London, at 3 MW, was the small end of the same list, sized as a carport and rooftop job rather than a ground farm, and it is the one that still has no name on the contract.

Load-shedding made that gap practical, not ceremonial. A harbour that rolls export cars needs cranes, lights, pumps and gates when the metro grid dips. A 3 MW carport will not island the whole river port, but a 1.5 MWh battery can carry selected loads through a short outage. That is a continuity tool with a climate covering letter. The covering letter is what went out in 2024. The tool has not been installed.

LNG Now Occupies the Energy Slot

On 16 September 2026 TNPA asked the market for a terminal operator to design, finance, build, run and then hand back a small-to-medium LNG import terminal after 25 years. The greenfield site is about 8,900 m² on the West Bank, next to the grain elevator and the liquid bulk berth, with road and rail access. A non-compulsory briefing is set for 29 September 2026. Proposals close on 22 February 2027. Bids that clear the gate will be scored 90/10 on concession fees and specific goals.

East London port manager Dr Sphiwe Mthembu said the concession is meant to pull private capital into energy kit and widen the harbour’s cargo base toward Eastern Cape industrial gas users. The same office could not be reached for extra detail when the solar request first went out in 2024. The LNG file is now the energy paper with a date on it.

WHAT IS LIVE ON THE WEST BANK

• Auto quay: Deepened West Quay in service from 2025, two 200 m-plus car carriers, 790,000-unit design rating.
• Solar plant: 3 MW plus 1.5 MWh battery, tender closed 31 October 2024, no public contractor.
• Desalination: Sunwater joint venture appointed April 2024; environmental process ran through 2025, construction not announced.
• LNG terminal: 25-year concession on 8,900 m², briefing 29 September 2026, bids due 22 February 2027.

The LNG idea has been around the Eastern Cape for years and keeps returning to the tender list, which is why a fresh request reads less like a sudden conversion and more like another run at the same berth. Transnet already signed a 25-year deal in February 2025 with Zululand Energy Terminals for a large LNG import terminal at Richards Bay. East London is being offered as the smaller cousin, a niche industrial supply point, not a climate substitute for the 3 MW carport.

So the harbour that was going green in August 2024 now has a rebuilt car quay, a desalination file still in the regulator’s tray, a solar request with no winner, and a gas concession on the diary. The C-Class plant that needed reliable power and water is running fewer shifts than it did before the solar bid, and shipping far fewer cars to the United States. Mthembu’s briefing on 29 September 2026 is the next date that is actually on a calendar.