Sean Naude, Account Manager, Sungrow | Africa Energy Forum 2026

As South Africa's fuel prices climb and its EV market nearly doubles in a year, the question for retail centres and office parks is whether their charging infrastructure will be ready. Sungrow's Nigel Sun makes the case for building solar, storage and charging as one system, now rather than later

Ramokgopa has set out 105GW of new generation and 14,500km of transmission, and wants the towers, transformers and cables built by South African manufacturers

136MW of solar reached the Zambian grid in 14 months, financed through local capital markets without a sovereign guarantee. Owen Silavwe, Managing Director of Copperbelt Energy, tells ENN whether Itimpi II is a repeatable blueprint for how Zambia builds, how far solar can cut the country's reliance on hydropower, and where battery storage fits next.

Deneys has returned as an independent South African law firm, reviving a name part of the country's legal landscape for over a century, now with 200 legal staff across three offices and a pipeline weighted towards energy and infrastructure. Jackie Midlane, Head of Banking & Finance, Projects, tells ENN what independence unlocks for clients building across the continent.

South Africa's transmission grid is gaining a new source of expertise as it prepares for higher shares of renewable power. On the sidelines of the Africa Energy Forum, Eskom, the NTCSA, France's RTE international and AFD signed a two-year technical cooperation programme to strengthen the grid's resilience, flexibility and capacity.

Africa has more countries than any other continent, and a power system fragmented along every border between them. At AEF 2026, the AfDB's Wale Shonibare, Africa GreenCo's Lion Mashiri and Ndola Energy's Adrian Silwimba argued that continental-scale projects only become financeable when electricity can be traded as freely as it is generated.

Advisers are due within weeks to open negotiations with the banks and funders holding Eskom's high-voltage assets as security. Valuation and the treatment of municipal debt sit beside that conversation, and Eskom itself has asked that any transfer wait until risks to its finances are addressed.

Minister of Electricity and Energy Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has confirmed the proposed approach to the first section 34 determination under the IRP 2025, prioritising 4,600MW of battery storage and 5,000MW of gas-to-power. Wind and solar wait for a later determination, as the ministry sets out to cut curtailment before adding variable generation.