Eskom has announced a stay in its legal action to have the regulator’s decision to licence five electricity traders in 2024 reviewed and set aside.

In July, Eskom launched its long-threatened legal review of the regulator’s decision to grant trading licences to Green Electron Market, CBI Electric Apollo, GreenCo Power Services (which also received a cross-border licence), Discovery Green and NOA Group Trading.

Eskom mounted the challenge despite the fact that similar licences had been approved in favour of several other electricity traders over the past more than ten years, as well as raising no objections to the issuance of subsequent licences this year.

It also proceeded despite the fact that the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) had launched what was initially a 12-month process to consult on and Gazette new trading rules.

Nersa subsequently agreed to reduce the time it would take to finalise the rules to three months, after which Electricity and Energy Minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa urged Eskom to withdraw its legal action.

Speaking during Eskom’s results presentation on September 30, CEO Dan Marokane revealed that the case had been stayed to allow the Nersa process, in which Eskom was an active participant, to proceed.

Marokane argued that Eskom launched the case at a time when it saw no alternative avenue for addressing its concerns over what it saw as an absence of clear rules for traders.

“We are in that [Nersa] process with all other stakeholders, and that's our commitment to the reforms and to drive towards a rules-based perspective.

“Our views will be shaped by that process [and] we have faith that we'll find a win-win position,” he said.

The case had raised major concerns regarding Eskom’s commitment to the reforms under way in the electricity sector and even prompted Ramokgopa to make a statement in which he described the reforms as irreversible.

The Minister repeated this statement at Eskom’s results function, going further to state that the monopoly era had ended.

“Eskom is not the only player on the generation side, that level of dominance is gone.

“So, Eskom must resign itself to a new dispensation and see how it survives under these new conditions,” the Minister added.