Power with Purpose: How Anthem Is Accelerating Southern Africa’s Energy Transition

In Southern Africa’s evolving power landscape, Anthem has emerged as one of the most significant integrated renewable energy players. Formed through the integration of African Clean Energy Developments (ACED) and Energy Infrastructure Management Services (EIMS Africa), the company now oversees one of South Africa’s largest portfolios of wind, solar and hydro projects. Anthem’s CEO, James Cumming, discusses the strategic thinking behind the formation of Anthem and the opportunities emerging from a liberalized regional power market.

1. Anthem was born from the integration of ACED and EIMS Africa – what was the strategic thinking behind this integration, and how has it shaped Anthem as an integrated renewable energy company?

The market in SA and the SADC region needs renewables businesses to be structured efficiently and geared for growth, allowing innovative ways to allocate resources, team, and optimize capital. A clear and coherent strategy, purpose, culture, value-set and, most importantly, value-offering is also vital for the ever-growing and liberalizing regional power market.

While complimentary businesses with common shareholding that had worked together over a decade, ACED, EIMS Africa, African Infrastructure Investment Managers’ (AIIM) IDEAS Fund and their collective project portfolio and greenfield pipeline existed in separate entities. Although ACED and EIMS Africa were housed and operating under one roof, this structure had room to be improved to achieve all these aforementioned ideals – hence the birth of Anthem. Anthem brings all of this under a newly-formed single entity and in doing so, was also able to raise additional equity capital and broaden the church of our investors, with Norfund and Mahlako joining AIIM’s IDEAS Fund. The IDEAS Fund remains the majority shareholder in Anthem. We are  immensely proud and grateful to have these shareholders and investors in Anthem.

Anthem develops, finances, owns, and manages one of the country’s most significant renewable energy portfolios, spanning 24 wind and solar PV projects across 5 provinces in South Africa, plus a hydroelectric project, and a soon-to-close solar PV project, in Eswatini.As an integrated renewable energy company, Anthem supplies clean power to Eskom, medium-to-large private power users, and traders or aggregators through:

1. 17 projects in operation with capacity of over 1.1 GW of clean energy, generating 2400 GWh per annum.
2. 4 projects in construction totaling 435 MW.
3. 3 projects in financial close totaling 1.2 GW.
4. Full operations and maintenance of 467MW Anthem-owned PV projects.

Together, this represents over 2.7GW of secured capacity and an estimated 12-15% market share in South Africa’s renewables Independent Power Producer (IPP) market.

2. Anthem manages every stage of project development – from early land acquisition and permitting through to financial close and commercial operation. What advantages does the company gain from this integrated model?

Starting with the end in mind – and that end always being long term ownership – means we take every step more seriously than those who may be more short-term minded or only focus on a single node of the value chain, especially those all-important early-stage processes and investments. This leads to high quality and standards, and allows for learning via iteration as the value chain or project cycle repeats, which often results in having a good handle on risk mitigation while also being able to see opportunities. In addition, it means our team gets to enjoy exposure to a wide range of workstreams, which keeps everyone challenged, stimulated, growing and ambitious. This all leads to improved customer, shareholder and partner value.

3. With a portfolio of over 2GW, and an 11GW pipeline, what is the secret to delivering large-scale renewable projects at speed and scale?

It is no secret… Time, team, tenacity, partnerships, and supportive shareholders and lenders. And a focus on our purpose: the impact and benefits these projects bring to a wide array of stakeholders. That’s what Anthem is all about – appreciating that to get these large and complex projects done, many people on various sides of a table need to work together despite their differing agendas to achieve a common goal: positive impact. It is hard work. And the only reason we think we are able to do it, and indeed the industry generally, is because of our collective “why”: the environmental and sustainable development benefits these projects bring. It’s Power with Purpose: jobs, growth, access to power, individual and national impact. When referring to time, we must remember that AIIM, ACED and EIMS Africa have been growing their portfolio and greenfield pipeline since 2007. This hasn’t been an overnight journey.

4. How do you see the regional grid and power trading frameworks, like the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP), evolving – and what opportunities might this open for Anthem?

We are excited by this. We won’t play in the regional grid directly (i.e. build transmission). Nor do we currently have plans to be a trader, as they are important customers to us. We will continue to focus on large scale generation at affordable pricing, and hope to foster the regional grid, trading and SAPP from the supply side and in so doing, create more opportunities for us to grow in SADC and the region through it and the improved access to market it will bring as the market continues to liberalize.

5. What is your interest in the Zimbabwe–Zambia Energy Projects Summit? Is Anthem looking to expand across the region?

We are. In time, carefully, with the right projects and teams and where opportunities can lead to scale.