“Real” wheeling protocols
The wheeling framework was approved by Nersa in March and confirmed at a media briefing held by the DoEE minister in April 2025.There is an increased number of applications for trading licences which Nersa has approved. Eskom, however, has launched a legal challenge against Nersa to grant five licences so far. Nersa chairperson Thembani Bukula…
read more >>Standard Offer to acquire electricity programme
Eskom launched a Standard Offer Programme to purchase up to 1,000MW of power from companies that have existing generation capacity for a period of three years, as well as an Emergency Generation Programme to purchase additional power when the grid is constrained. The Eskom board is considering increasing the existing 1,000MW allocation for its Standard…
read more >>ERA Bill/Act
The Electricity Regulation Amendment Bill was signed by the President in August 2024 and came into effect on 1 January 2025. It contains numerous reforms and initiatives to enable the transformation of the country’s electricity into a competitve market under a Transmission System Operator. Full implementation, however, is being held up by opposition from municipalities,…
read more >>Energy Security Bill
This legislation is backed by National Treasury and the National Energy Crisis Committee (Necom), which sits in the Presidency, forming part of the Operation Vulindlela agenda.
read more >>Raising cap on self-generation to 100MW threshold
The declaration made by President Cyril Ramaphosa on 10 June 2021 liberalised a major portion of the electricity supply sector. Ramaphosa raised South Africa’s 10MW regulatory cap on electricity self-generation, also known as “embedded generation”, to 100MW. This enabled private companies to move forward with long-delayed projects without having to worry about over-burdensome licensing requirements….
read more >>Mozambique electricity imports
On 22 June 2023, the cabinet signed an agreement for Mozambique to supply South Africa with 100MW of electricity within three months of the power purchase agreement. Three months later, the Mozambican government said that it wanted answers from President Cyril Ramaphosa’s administration as to why there had been no movement from Eskom on the…
read more >>Integrated Resource Plan 2025
In an effort to update in the 2019 IRP, the former DMRE issued the draft IRP 2023 for public comment in January 2024. It is intended to act as a blueprint for the country’s future energy mix and in so doing, guide the country’s plans to generate new capacity to produce electricity. Following extensive input,…
read more >>New coal-fired electricity BW2
This coal bid window was supposed to procure 1,500MW from clean coal technologies, which could include capturing carbon emissions from burning coal and storing them underground, although there are numerous variations of what is termed clean coal. HALTED: We stopped tracking this issue at end-June 2025 as it was part of the IRP 2019, which…
read more >>New coal-fired electricity BW1
This reform did advance with bid winners announced in 2016, but has since been halted following legal and environmental opposition. In December 2020, the High Court in Pretoria set aside the environmental approval for the 1,200 MW Thabametsi coal-fired power station that would have been built in its first phase at 557MW outside Lephalale in…
read more >>Nuclear electricity plant BW
The government issued a gazette to withdraw the intention to procure 2,500MW nuclear power, stating that more public consultation is required before the official RFQ can be issued. We stopped tracking this issue at end-June 2025. The 2,500MW new nuclear build was abandoned when the DoEE minister withdrew the ministerial determination in 2024. The updated…
read more >>