Sustainable Energy

Seriti Green investment reaches R25bn as Ummbila Emoyeni opens

3rd August, 2026

Seriti Green signed a further R10bn at Bethal on Friday as the first 155MW of Ummbila Emoyeni entered commercial operation, taking committed investment to R25bn. President Cyril Ramaphosa attended and said the company would reach R40bn, with a second wind development of 600MW planned beside it and 187 turbines between the two.

One of the 25 turbines now turning at Bethal is wrapped in Ndebele design and known as The Ambassador. Mike Teke, chairman of Seriti Green, and Mpumalanga premier Mandla Ndlovu stood beneath it on Friday afternoon as the first 155MW phase of Ummbila Emoyeni entered commercial operation, with President Cyril Ramaphosa, the Minister of Electricity and Energy and the executive mayors of Lekwa, Msukaligwa and Govan Mbeki alongside them.

The signing was the part that moved the numbers. Seriti Green committed a further R10bn on the day for two more phases of development, bringing the total to R25bn, with Goldwind, Tractionel and Stefanutti Stocks named among the delivery partners and Etana, the Energy Exchange and NOA among the traders taking the power. Ramaphosa recognised the company at the Fifth Annual Investment Conference in Sandton in April 2023, when the first phase stood at R4.5bn. Three years later the project is worth R15bn.

Seriti plans a further 600MW of wind on land across the road from the current site, under the name Phefumula Emoyeni. Taken with Ummbila Emoyeni that comes to 187 turbines, which the company describes as one of the largest renewable energy precincts in Southern Africa. Ramaphosa went further than the signed figure, telling the room that Seriti would end up investing as much as R40bn and that another R10bn would come before it, and asking the company to make that commitment at next year’s conference having already delivered on this one.

Getting the electricity off the site required its own build. The Vunumoya transmission infrastructure represents roughly R1.2bn of Seriti investment, and the main transmission substation was completed in 17 months. That is the constraint most South African renewable projects run into, and it was resolved here before the turbines needed it.

Teke put the output at 500,000 homes and the workforce at more than 2,100 people who have worked on the build, with 18,500 job seekers registered on the company’s skills portal and over half of them women. The premier opened Seriti Green’s new Mpumalanga headquarters in Bethal earlier the same day before touring the remote operations centre and the community digital training centre.

Peter Venn, chief executive of Seriti Green, gave the room a figure that says as much about the build as the capacity does. The project has accumulated more than three million hours of work without a single lost-time injury. His argument for what follows is that the next gathering should be about something wider than another wind farm, with solar and batteries alongside it, and communities and industries changed by the work rather than merely near it.