South Africa's grid expansion falls drastically short; transmission line delays threaten r

South Africa needs 14,000 kilometers of new transmission lines built within a decade. Eskom laid 186 kilometers in nine months last year. That gap, between what the grid requires and what is actually being constructed, defined the debate at a public forum held in Cape Town on 25 August 2026.

The event, “South Africa’s energy transition: After the crisis,” was convened as part of the Collective Conversations: On Science for Society series hosted by the University of Cape Town. Academics, government officials and financial analysts gathered to examine whether the country can simultaneously retire coal capacity, build renewable generation and transmission systems, and keep electricity affordable for ordinary households.

The most contested claim came from Professor Harro von Blottnitz, director of UCT’s Energy Systems Research Group, who argued that load shedding is “structurally resolved.” He pointed to rooftop solar installations, improved generation performance and battery storage as evidence that South Africa has moved past the crisis’s root causes. His caution, however, was equally pointed. “While an energy transition is indeed happening, the quality of recent planning processes is questionable and it may be more contested than planned,” Von Blottnitz said. Without capable state leadership, he warned, the prospects for a just transition remain uncertain.

Government officials were more guarded. Alwie Lester, special advisor on energy to the Western Cape Premier and a former Eskom executive with 25 years of experience, acknowledged that the state response to load shedding had been urgent but insufficient. He identified a new operational pressure taking its place. “With load shedding retreating, another urgency being created is around the affordability of electricity,” Lester said. He also flagged a structural risk: restructuring Eskom could create significant capacity shortages in grid management, while the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism threatens South African exports as long as production stays tied to coal-generated power.

The capital requirements are immense. Dan Ginsberg, executive director and head actuary at Discovery Green, put the cost of transitioning to clean energy and building the necessary generation and transmission infrastructure at approximately R2 trillion, roughly equivalent to the entire annual government budget. The public sector cannot carry that alone, making private investment essential to any realistic delivery timeline.

Meanwhile, the economics of the transition are being complicated by demand destruction. Ginsberg noted that declining electricity consumption, driven partly by de-industrialisation, has masked the true severity of supply constraints. As more affluent consumers install rooftop solar and reduce grid dependence, municipalities reliant on electricity tariffs have responded by raising fixed network charges to protect revenue. Lester and other panellists described this as a “death spiral” for municipalities. Cape Town’s electricity demand from Eskom dropped 6 percent over a decade, yet Eskom maintained its cost structure and passed the burden onto remaining consumers through higher fixed charges.

A contrasting delivery model is taking shape from the ground up. Dr Joel Nana, project manager at Sustainable Energy Africa and a UCT PhD alumnus, documented what he called a “bottom-up revolution” across the continent. In Africa, rooftop solar now accounts for 75 percent of all solar installations. Zambia built 900 megawatts of solar capacity, representing 25 percent of its grid, in three years after a drought destroyed 90 percent of its hydroelectric generation. Nigeria constructed 4.4 gigawatts of solar, 32 percent of grid capacity, following the removal of diesel subsidies. Kenya’s solar capacity now represents 55 percent of its grid. In South Africa, citizens and businesses installed approximately 9 gigawatts of rooftop solar in three years, matching the renewable capacity the government procured over 15 years.

Nana proposed a regulatory mechanism to extend that momentum. He suggested allowing households with surplus solar energy to credit that power to family members in rural areas through an “e-wallet” system, distributing the benefits of distributed generation beyond individual installations. “If I built this big solar PV system on my roof and generate more than I need, the regulations allow me to inject or export the excess to the grid and be compensated for it. But why can’t I account some of that to my mom’s electricity bill in the village?” he asked. Realising that idea would require new regulatory frameworks and policies to expand participation beyond large solar farms.

The financial history sharpens the stakes. Ginsberg observed that if electricity tariffs had simply tracked inflation over the past 20 years, they would cost a quarter of current prices. South Africa simultaneously produces the world’s dirtiest electricity per kilowatt-hour due to coal dependency while facing a transition that demands massive capital investment and rapid infrastructure construction. Whether the regulatory and institutional machinery can close the gap between required deployment and actual delivery rates is the operational question the country has yet to answer. More information on these issues is available at https://www.news.uct.ac.za/article/-2026-09-03-e-walleting-the-sun-challenges-of-affordability-and-justice-for-southafricas-energy-transition.