South Africa’s wholesale electricity market is due to open before the end of September

NTCSA moved the launch from 1 April to the third quarter after an assessment with NERSA found more work was needed on operational and regulatory readiness. The regulator granted the company its Market Operator Licence in December, and only certified participants will be able to trade.

The South African Wholesale Electricity Market is scheduled to open during the current quarter, after the National Transmission Company South Africa confirmed in March that the original date of 1 April would not be met. The company said an assessment carried out with the National Energy Regulator of South Africa and industry participants found further work was required on market, operational and regulatory requirements.

The licence that makes it possible arrived in December, when NERSA granted NTCSA the Market Operator Licence under the Electricity Regulation Act. That allows the company to run the systems through which electricity is bought and sold.

Chief executive Monde Bala said adjusting the timeline ensures the market is introduced responsibly, and that as the regulatory framework is finalised the market will progressively open to independent generators, traders and other participants. The company is taking a phased approach to the rollout to safeguard grid stability and reduce the risk of disruption.

Participation is gated on certification rather than on capacity. Only those who have completed the NTCSA’s SAWEM School, a three-day programme run monthly covering bid submission, market clearing, credit management and compliance, will be eligible to trade. Sessions have been fully subscribed, with additional venues under consideration in the Free State and North West.

The design is a hybrid net pool, combining bilateral contracts with centralised dispatch and price formation, initially facilitating trading between generators and large customers before widening. For an independent producer with a project above 10MW it changes the revenue model, since short-term trading meets demand dynamically rather than through long-term fixed agreements alone.

Coal supplies more than 70 per cent of South African electricity, which under marginal pricing means coal units will frequently set the clearing price while wind and solar, carrying near-zero marginal costs, are dispatched ahead of them. That arithmetic is why the market design matters as much to a developer as the tariff does.