5 Minutes with NERSA Chairperson Thembani Bukula

Thembani Bukula, Chairperson of the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA), shares insights in this rapid-fire discussion on the regulatory shifts reshaping South Africa’s electricity sector.

As the country accelerates reforms – from unbundling transmission and redefining market structures to enabling private generation and addressing grid constraints – NERSA sits at the centre of a balancing act: driving transparency and investor confidence, while ensuring affordability and system reliability.

In this five-minute interview, Bukula outlines key regulatory priorities driving South Africa’s power market – and the challenges that remain.

South Africa’s electricity sector is undergoing significant reform. From NERSA’s perspective, what are the most important regulatory developments currently shaping the country’s evolving power market?

There are a number of developments happening almost simultaneously, each with far-reaching consequences for the market. The first of these is the unbundling of the transmission company, the required changes to licenses, and the new licenses that need to be issued. Perhaps the most important part of this process is the license conditions for the Market Operator.

Then there is the Market Code, which will determine how the market will operate. There are some key decisions associated with this that will transform the sector. One of the many will be the level of transparency and the public domain information required for the market to work properly.

It is vital to get these two aspects correct for the market to work, and the regulator is giving them a lot of attention, including extensive discussions with other regulators who have gone down this road ahead of us.

As the market evolves, how is NERSA balancing the need for cost-reflective tariffs with affordability while ensuring fair and transparent participation by private generation?

Cost reflectivity of tariffs is the ultimate goal of the Regulator.  However, there is a need to balance this with the affordability of the services.

At the same time, as private generation capacity continues to grow, NERSA has introduced Grid Access Rules to ensure that access to the grid is administered in a fair, just and transparent manner.

Transmission infrastructure is increasingly seen as a bottleneck to new generation. What role does regulation play in enabling transmission expansion and improving grid reliability?

NERSA has approved a significant CAPEX budget for Transmission in the MYPD6, just for this reason. NERSA is also actively engaged in the Integrated Transmission Plan (ITP) program.

NERSA has always supported the Transmission Development Plan (TDP), but for a number of years, Eskom took the revenue determined in favour of this and diverted it elsewhere. This is why we are in the backlog state that we are in now.

Chairperson Thembani Bukula will be speaking at the African Energy Forum 2026 this June, where he will expand on South Africa’s regulatory reforms and the future of its evolving power market.