The European Union (EU) is supporting South Africa in its efforts to reform the electricity sector – to accelerate the roll out of new generation capacity to feed into the grid to address load shedding, while, at the same time, increasing the share of renewable energy in the South African energy mix to support the implementation of the ambitiously revised Nationally Determined Contribution South Africa submitted to the UNFCCC at COP26.

For that reason, the critical role of the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) is acknowledged. As a regulator, NERSA is responsible for monitoring and ensuring the good functioning of the energy sector in South Africa – with oversight over important elements such as the future electricity transmission operator, grid tariffs, the Electricity Grid Code and grid connection rules, etc.

The overall objective of the project was to contribute to efforts to facilitate the exchange of experiences and dialogues between South African and European sustainable public and private energy related stakeholders and to broaden and deepen the interaction that facilitate the just transition and sustainable energy.

Specific objectives of the project were:

• Support NERSA with expert knowledge and guidance to prepare it for its increasing critical role as an energy regulator as per the upcoming South African electricity sector reform. This activity also aimed to synergize on-going support to NERSA by GET Transform (GIZ) and other German related bilateral programs as well as bilateral support from Denmark or others as applicable.
• Increase awareness of opportunities of electricity sector reforms for accelerating the addition of new generation capacity onto the grid, better integrating renewables, and therefore improving reliability of the energy system and climate resilience of South Africa.
• Foster EU-RSA business engagements to propose useful solutions to make the most of the upcoming electricity sector reforms through a parallel work stream.

The RSA-EU exchanges focused on priority topics linked to sustainable energy, energy funding and the role of a regulator to ensure a good function of the energy sector and system and to facilitate a useful integration of renewable energy.