South Africa is at a critical juncture. With the Electricity Regulation Amendment Act (ERAA) now enshrining open access and competition into law, the promise of a reformed, liberalised electricity sector is finally within reach.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Eskom\u2019s conduct \u2014 and the silence of the Competition Commission \u2014 threaten to unravel these reforms before they even begin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For more than a decade, private electricity traders have operated in South Africa with Eskom\u2019s acceptance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
PowerX, licensed by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) in 2009, and at least four others licensed since 2021, have been contracting with customers in Eskom and municipal supply areas. There were no court reviews, no objections, and it was business as usual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then, in 2024, there were five new electricity trader licence applications \u2014 by Green Electron Market, GreenCo, CBI Electric Apollo, NOA Energy Trading and Discovery Green.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Suddenly, Eskom changed tack. It lodged objections against all five trading licence applications during the NERSA hearings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, in October 2024 and January 2025, NERSA granted the above five applicants trading licences, together with an import\/export licence to GreenCo \u2014 the first of its kind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eskom has subsequently filed a High Court review application in an effort to overturn these specific decisions by NERSA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since then, NERSA has granted four further trading licence applications \u2014 to Solis Energy Trading, Investec Bank, SOLA TradeCo and LinkSolar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While initially indicating its intention to oppose at least some of these applications, Eskom ultimately did not object, as evidenced by the cancellation of NERSA hearings after no stakeholders or members of the public registered to make representation to NERSA in respect of these applications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eskom\u2019s inconsistencies are startling and unexplained. If Eskom truly believed traders undermined its tariffs, cross-subsidies or exclusive rights, it would oppose all licences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead, it fights some while tolerating others. This is not principle, it is protectionism. It reveals Eskom\u2019s legal posture as opportunistic \u2014 a strategy seemingly designed to cherry-pick which competitors it fears most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The objections themselves fail to stand up to scrutiny:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For years Eskom accepted these realities. Now, as liberalisation gathers pace, Eskom objects selectively \u2014 revealing its hand through anti-competitive exclusionary conduct \u2014 a textbook abuse of dominance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The move has not gone unnoticed at the top. On 11 August 2025, Energy & Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa publicly urged Eskom to drop its legal challenge to NERSA\u2019s trading licences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He warned that litigation was undermining the very reforms Parliament had mandated and called on NERSA to expedite the finalisation of trading rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Business leadership groups \u2014 Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) and Business Unity South Africa (BUSA) \u2014 echoed his call, urging Eskom to align with national policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And yet Eskom has not stood down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This highlights a critical gap: if the Minister cannot persuade Eskom to abandon a litigation strategy that clearly contradicts Government\u2019s own policy, how can investors trust Government\u2019s ability to deliver on the Independent Transmission Project (ITP) programme or the Just Energy Transition (JET) especially as both rely on private sector investment?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The credibility of South Africa\u2019s reform agenda depends not only on laws passed, but on whether Eskom \u2014 the largest state-owned enterprise (SOE) \u2014 obeys them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When NERSA invited interested parties to the first stakeholder engagement on 22 August 2025 to begin developing electricity trading rules, the intention was to create a collaborative forum to kickstart the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Eskom\u2019s opening presentation<\/a> reads less like a positive contribution and more like a court challenge, turning NERSA\u2019s first trading rules workgroup into a virtual courtroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Slide after slide insisted that NERSA\u2019s licensing of traders was unlawful, that contracts between distributors and customers had been \u201cunilaterally cancelled,\u201d and that customer choice was not an absolute right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In effect, Eskom used a collaborative regulatory workshop to advance its litigation strategy \u2014 before the courts have even had the chance to consider the matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is not good faith engagement. It is virtual litigation, conducted under the cover of stakeholder consultation. This sits uneasily with the ERAA itself, which enshrines the promotion of competition and customer choice as explicit objectives of the law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eskom\u2019s approach is a throwback to the old monopoly model, directly at odds with the very reforms Parliament has just passed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A similar abuse of process occurred during the final stakeholder consultation workshop on the draft Market Code on 11 September 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After failing to participate and engage in the first nine workshops facilitated by the National Energy Crisis Committee (NECOM) and NTCSA in 2024 and 2025, a representative from the Eskom Regulatory team finally pitched up to make input clearly intended to throw a spanner in the works<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The credibility gap is glaring. How can Eskom be trusted to help design the rules of a competitive market when it is simultaneously litigating to prevent that market from emerging?<\/p>\n\n\n\nEskom\u2019s policy vs. NERSA\u2019s rules<\/h2>\n\n\n\n