The South African electricity market is undergoing a major change, with the development and implementation of the South African Wholesale Electricity Market (SAWEM). “We’re currently in a transition phase,” pointed out National Electricity Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) executive manager of electricity Rhulani Mathebula, in a panel discussion at the Windaba 2025 conference, at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, on Thursday. This transition phase is defined as lasting five years.

Under SAWEM, the market operating entity will be the National Transmission Company South Africa (NTCSA). This is being created out of national electricity utility Eskom.

“We have a situation where the NTCSA is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Eskom,” he highlighted. “How do we ensure that the NTCSA is totally unbundled and is independent?” Nersa, he assured, was working on ensuring this would be the case by means of conditions it would put in the licence, authorising the NTCSA to operate, that it was drawing up and would enforce.

“The scope of [Nersa] started increasing, a few years ago, with the start of the [independent power producers],” he noted. Further, while there used to be just one licensing process and one oversight process for Eskom, there now needed to be three of each such processes, one for each of the three units into which Eskom was being split. “But we are capacitating ourselves.” He acknowledged the strong support Nersa was receiving in this process, from across industry and government.

He noted that Nersa was developing a new methodology for tariff determination, for the SAWEM era. “The whole tariff chain is going to go through a complete overhaul.”

He urged consumers to get involved in the process. Nersa undertook public participation processes whenever it launched new policies, market structures or tariffs. But, he lamented, there had so far been poor involvement by the public in these processes.

A new electricity market design is being developed by the Department of Electricity and Energy. The new market code is also being designed. Nersa will have to take the new market code out to the public, and get their input, once it has been developed. Nersa will also have to approve the NTCSA’s market operating platform.

“It’s not all set,” he stressed. “You still have a platform, where you can still influence what the SAWEM looks like.” People should not miss this opportunity.