South Africa has an installed solar PV capacity of 10.2 GW, 72 GW of renewable-energy projects at an advanced stage of development and a pipeline of 220 GW of renewable-energy projects.

However, the industry has reached a critical bottleneck, says industry organisation South African Photovoltaic Industry Association (SAPVIA) technical and policy manager Sim Khuluse.

“The challenge is no longer a lack of investment appetite or technology readiness, but the physical and regulatory capacity of the national grid. The energy transition has moved beyond the race to generate electrons and is now a race to build the infrastructure that carries them.”

The 2025 South African Renewable Energy Grid Survey showed that, while developers are ready to build, grid connection remains the single largest hurdle to delivery.

In high-resource areas, like the Northern Cape and the Eastern Cape, projects are increasingly competing for limited connection points, leading to a so-called gridlock situation that can stifle private-sector-led growth, he says.

The priority has shifted from incentivising investment to actively unblocking the grid. By expanding and modernising the national grid infrastructure and refining wheeling frameworks, South Africa can move the 220 GW renewable pipeline into active production, Khuluse says.

“In 2026, grid connectivity, not capital, will be the final arbiter of South Africa's energy success,” he comments.

Further, SAPVIA remains an advocate for the liberalisation of the transmission grid.

For the National Transmission Company South Africa to succeed, it must function as an investment-grade, standalone entity capable of raising the R440-billion capital required to deliver the 14 500 km of new transmission lines needed this decade, he emphasises.

A transmission operator without a strong asset base is a high-risk borrower. Investor trust depends on transparent governance and a firewall between the entities managing the grid and those generating the power, he adds.

SMARTER GRID
The future of the South African grid is smarter and, this year, nearly 50% of new projects incorporate battery energy storage systems (BESS), says Khuluse.

This transition from variable generation to firm, dispatchable power that can provide ancillary services, like frequency regulation, is the new baseline for grid stability, he notes.

Smart infrastructure, including advanced metering, automated wheeling, billing at the municipal level and utility-scale storage, allows the grid to act as a dynamic marketplace.

With the South African Wholesale Electricity Market set to start this year, the ability to dispatch power from solar generation during peak periods from BESS will become a commercial necessity.

“Our vision is for solar PV to be a significant and reliable contributor to South Africa's electricity mix. By expanding and modernising the grid, we are securing the industrial and economic future of the country,” says Khuluse.