By David McDonald, CEO at SolarAfrica
For greater than a decade, South Africa’s power sector was caught in a continuing state of disaster. However come 2025, and we lastly noticed an actual step change throughout the trade, as we began to maneuver from firefighting to future-facing mode.
And whereas it’s not but excellent – and it definitely hasn’t been easy crusing – for these of us within the renewable power house, it felt like watching a sector lengthy caught in impartial lastly click on into gear.
Listed below are 5 large energy strikes that this yr introduced us.
Energy Transfer 1: SA strikes in direction of a wholesale power market
With the upcoming introduction of the South African Wholesale Power Market (SAWEM) in 2026, this yr might be remembered because the yr South Africa lastly put actual oomph behind electrical energy market reform. With SAWEM, South Africa will shift from a single-buyer system (Eskom controls every part) to a aggressive and open electrical energy market – one thing we’ve been speaking about for years, however are actually lastly shifting on.
A number of brief weeks in the past, the Nationwide Power Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) authorised the nation’s first market operator licence – a precursor to the launch of SAWEM – which factors to a future the place a number of personal gamers can commerce and wheel energy freely, like an “electrical energy inventory change”.
This shift will finally set the scene for a wholesale market the place mills can promote to a number of offtakers, and the place licensed merchants can compete on value and suppleness. This may unlock extra personal funding, extra competitors, decrease costs – whereas for companies, this heralds a brand new period of selection, the place corporations may have extra company than ever earlier than relating to their power combine.
Energy Transfer 2: The Nice Buying and selling Licence Increase (however there’s nonetheless no playbook)
If 2024 was a trickle, 2025 was the watershed. Demand for electrical energy buying and selling licences skyrocketed as corporations rushed to safe their place within the rising service provider market.
Whereas this increase unfolded in parallel with guidelines which are nonetheless being outlined, the lingering uncertainty did little to cease the momentum. The trade’s need to dynamically purchase and promote energy has outpaced regulation, demonstrating how desperately the nation’s C&I sector needs options to the standard mannequin, which is solely reliant on the nationwide grid. And it’s clear that after the ultimate framework drops, we are able to anticipate market participation to climb much more aggressively.
Energy Transfer 3: One-to-many technology turns into a actuality
Historically, Impartial Energy Producers (IPPs) would signal one energy buy settlement (PPA) with one buyer, often known as a “one-to-one” mannequin. Nonetheless, we noticed a significant milestone that modified the South African power sector in 2025: a single utility-scale photo voltaic farm noticed its energy come on-line, enabling the wheeling of power to a number of company prospects concurrently in a “one-to-many” technology mannequin.
And whereas this Free State-based photo voltaic farm drew the headlines, the importance is way larger: South Africa now has proof of idea that large-scale personal technology can serve a large group of offtakers, by way of a shared asset mannequin.
SolarAfrica, by way of its SunCentral undertaking positioned between De Aar and Hanover and which boasts a complete 1GW capability, is an instance of one other developer that can cater to this aggregated offtake surroundings, with its energy anticipated to come back on-line in early 2026. Count on many others to observe go well with.
Energy Transfer 4: Personal capital enters the group chat
Maybe one of many largest energy strikes of 2025 pertained to an announcement at this yr’s Medium-Time period Price range Coverage Assertion (MTBPS), which might see authorities lastly enable personal sector participation in transmission infrastructure. This consists of third-party funded transmission traces, personal grid enlargement (with Eskom oversight) and cost-sharing fashions between IPPs and the state-owned entity.
The importance of that is that it permits personal sector to co-fund and co-develop sections of South Africa’s transmission community, serving to increase capability by assuaging the bottlenecks created by Eskom’s grid constraints; bottlenecks that throttle the roll-out of renewable energy.
Energy Transfer 5: Company SA goes all in on renewables
If there was any lingering doubt about whether or not corporates have been able to embrace renewables at scale, 2025 settled it.
Heavy power customers – from mining and automotive to manufacturing and agriculture – signed a number of the largest renewable PPAs within the nation’s historical past, lots of them underneath wheeling buildings. Whereas pushed, partially, by sustainability issues such because the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), affordability can be a key purpose behind this progress, with tariffs persevering with to climb.
This collective transfer has strengthened the case for utility-scale personal technology and sped up demand for versatile wheeling options; areas the place we at SolarAfrica have personally seen elevated curiosity from companies looking for stability over the approaching years.
One factor’s for positive: if this was the yr the gears lastly clicked into place, 2026 is when the trade actually picks up pace. Buckle up.
About SolarAfrica
Based in 2011, SolarAfrica supplies a set of capex-free inexperienced power options to the industrial and industrial sectors in Southern Africa. The holistic suite consists of on-site options equivalent to photo voltaic power and battery storage along with digital options like wheeling, buying and selling and aggregation.
SolarAfrica companions with companies in South Africa looking for an power resolution that gives energy safety, value financial savings and carbon discount – constructing in direction of long-term sustainability.
The corporate has developed into an formidable staff who’re keen about what they do and the core values they uphold. SolarAfrica has been named the continent’s main photo voltaic power agency twice, scooping the Africa Photo voltaic Business Affiliation’s African Photo voltaic Firm of the 12 months award in 2021 and 2023.
