South Africa: TotalEnergies Heads for the Sun

Sequence 1: Romain Sormani

15”:

I’m Romain Sormani and I'm in charge of growing solar activities for Total in South Africa. I’m overseeing the Prieska project, a photovoltaic power plant located around 800 kilometers north of Cape Town.

Our competitive price was a key factor in the government's decision to choose Total. It was also and most importantly based on our ability to develop complex projects, build solid, lasting partnerships with local stakeholders and develop a high-value-added project for the country and government with SunPower's expertise and technology.

47’’:

- Thank you.

- Thank you very much

Sequence 2: Chris Aberdeen

50’’:

Chairman,  Mulilo

Mulilo is our main partner for project development in South Africa. We first teamed up with them in 2011.

56”

- You good?

- All good.

-Good to see you man.

-Sit down

1’00 :

In South Africa, Mulilo is one of the biggest renewable energy companies. We were looking to expand and do a lot more projects in South Africa. And we needed to partner with a large corporation to be able to grow — and we met the guys from Total. Then, very quickly, we concluded a deal. It’s a very exciting relationship.

1’27’’ :

“So how long is the drive to Prieska now?”

“It’s about thirty minutes.”

“OK, cool.”

1’ 33”:

Prieska's site, which covers roughly 200 hectares, is located in the Northern Cape, a desert region of South Africa.

1’ 39”:

- Hello Andre!

- It’s good to see you.

- Thank you.

- Good to see you, OK!

- Yeah, yeah!

Sequence 4: Presentation of the site with Andre Bakker and the SunPower team.

1’ 46”:

Prieska Construction Site Manager

- The site runs in an east-west direction, 2.5 kilometers and in the north-south direction 1.5 kilometers and we are roughly talking about 270 soccer fields.

We are using a SunPower panel on site. It’s the highest efficiency PV module available in the world.

The technology on the site is very exciting. The trackers are built on mechanical devices, which allows the panels to follow the sunlight during the day.

Sequence 5: View of the plant from a drone and sunset

2’ 21”:

We have an 86-megawatt power plant consisting of around 200,000 high-efficiency SunPower panels. It generates enough electricity to supply 75,000 South African homes.

South Africa is one of the world's most active countries in renewables development, and Total is very proud of supporting its efforts to diversify its power mix.

2’ 44”:

Working in solar is really exciting day to day. We're helping to bring about a small revolution in power markets in the world.

Total can make solar energy increasingly competitive and accessible to everyone.

(Music)