Electricity & energy minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa says the end of load-shedding must now be followed by grid expansion, electricity market and pricing reforms, as well as universal access, as his department tabled a R6.1bn budget for 2026/27.
Speaking during the department’s budget vote in parliament on Tuesday, Ramokgopa said South Africa is approaching 365 days without load-shedding but warned that the improvement in electricity supply should not be treated as the end of the crisis.
“We are no longer at the point where we were during the most difficult period of the crisis,” Ramokgopa said, adding that Eskom’s operational performance has improved, maintenance discipline has strengthened and system co-ordination has become sharper.
The department has been allocated R6.1bn for 2026/27. Most of the allocation goes to energy programmes & projects, which receive R4bn, largely for electrification. Nuclear energy regulation & management receives R1.6bn, administration R281m, energy planning & policy development R68m and state-owned companies’ support services R44.5m.
Ramokgopa said the budget is intended to play a catalytic role by providing policy authority, programme co-ordination, oversight, regulation and project preparation for a much larger energy infrastructure investment pipeline.
He said the department will focus on the following priorities:
- Risk-adjusted energy planning through the integrated resource plan, gas master plan and integrated energy plan.
- Accelerated grid expansion and transmission reform.
- A sequenced South African wholesale electricity market implementation roadmap.
- Capacity acceleration, including coal fleet transition, gas, storage, nuclear and green hydrogen.
- The finalisation of electricity pricing and distribution sector reforms.
Ramokgopa said the Integrated Resource Plan 2025 will be treated as a “living system instrument” and tested against demand, supply delays, transmission readiness, Eskom performance, storage requirements, gas availability, affordability and fiscal constraints.
“South Africa cannot claim its energy future on assumptions that are not tested against reality,” he said.
The minister said the department will develop a programme for coal fleet retirement, repowering and repurposing, moving away from station-by-station decisions towards a national framework that considers system security, electricity prices, workers, municipalities and affected communities.
“The transition must be managed with people, not imposed on people,” he said.
Ramokgopa said gas will form part of South Africa’s future electricity capacity mix in which it will be affordable, bankable and aligned with infrastructure readiness. On nuclear energy, he said the department will advance work on the nuclear build programme, the nuclear fuel cycle strategy, small modular reactors, the pebble bed modular reactor and future nuclear procurement.
Nuclear safety will remain central to public confidence, requiring independent regulation and assurance that people, property and the environment are protected, he said.
Ramokgopa said the main lesson from the electricity crisis is that there could be no energy transition without transmission expansion.
“The national transmission company of South Africa has already moved important parts of the transmission development plan into procurement and execution,” he said.
He said the department will secure confidence in grid capacity delivery through an integrated transmission expansion plan, bringing together the transmission development plan, independent transmission projects, grid models, system reliability requirements and the integrated resource plan.
The minister said South Africa is preparing for a more transparent and competitive electricity market through the South African wholesale electricity market, which will introduce clearer price signals, improve dispatch efficiency, allocate balancing responsibilities and reduce long-term reliance on the single-buyer model.
But he said market reform will not mean the state retreating from the electricity sector.
“We are transforming the electricity market — not so that the state can retreat, but so that the state can govern a more complex system with better instruments,” he said.
Ramokgopa said the department is processing the electricity pricing policy for submission to the cabinet, after which it will be opened for public consultation. The process will provide a revised framework for tariff setting, cost reflectivity, wholesale pricing, use-of-system charges, time-of-use pricing, subsidy separation, municipal cost-of-supply enforcement and social protection.
The national recovery in electricity supply has to be carried into communities, where many households still experience outages due to failed transformers, overloaded feeders and weak municipal networks, he said. “A national system can be stable while the local community remains in darkness because a transformer has failed, a feeder is overloaded or a municipal network is unable to cope.”
The department will also finalise the electricity distribution industry roadmap and operationalise a universal access programme to address the 1.6-million household electricity access gap.
ANC MP Zama Khanyase, chair of the portfolio committee on electricity & energy, said the department is central to economic growth and job creation but remains underfunded. Khanyase said the integrated national electrification programme remains central to correcting the historical injustices of apartheid and expanding access to electricity in historically disadvantaged communities.
“Energy poverty must be eradicated and should have no place in our transformation project,” she said.
She said the department has to ensure effective implementation of the Electricity Regulation Amendment Act, update the electricity pricing policy and implement the Integrated Resource Plan 2025. She also pointed to the transmission development plan, which requires about 14,000km of transmission lines and additional transformer capacity by 2030.
Energy poverty must be eradicated and should have no place in our transformation project.
— Zama Khanyase, chair of the portfolio committee on electricity & energy
EFF MP Nazier Paulsen also rejected the budget, saying it fails to provide a decisive response to South Africa’s electricity and energy crisis.
Paulsen said the department continues to suffer from a vacancy rate of more than 10%, including vacant senior leadership posts. He said a department tasked with securing the country’s energy future cannot operate without stable leadership.
The EFF said it remains opposed to the fragmentation and privatisation of Eskom, arguing that electricity is a public good that should remain under democratic state control.
Paulsen called for a unified, state-owned electricity company consolidating generation, transmission and distribution and said free basic electricity should be expanded to 200 kilowatt-hours for qualifying households.
DA MP Edwin Baptie focused on the entities within the department’s portfolio, warning that the ambitions of the Integrated Resource Plan 2025 will place additional strain on the National Nuclear Regulator, the National Radioactive Waste Disposal Institute, the South African National Energy Development Institute and the National Energy Regulator of South Africa.
Baptie said the shift towards renewables, supported by gas and nuclear, has implications for nuclear waste, regulatory capacity, skills retention and the long-term financial viability of entities.
He said Nersa’s mandate has grown in complexity as the electricity market shifted and questioned whether the regulator has adequate capacity to balance Eskom’s financial sustainability, consumer protection, local government dysfunction, grid constraints and the move towards a competitive wholesale electricity market.
Freedom Front Plus MP Wynand Boshoff said electricity is not only a social good but also the lifeblood of industrialisation, warning that South Africa’s weak electricity demand partly reflects the country’s weak economy. Boshoff said the absence of load-shedding should not be mistaken for sufficient electricity supply for a growing economy, as some energy-intensive industrial users have shut down and no longer require power.
He also criticised tariffs proposed for rooftop solar users, saying they appear to punish people who have invested in their own electricity supply. Eskom and municipalities should rather incentivise storage to help bridge peak demand periods, he said.
ActionSA MP Alan Beesley supported the budget, but said improvement should not be confused with success. He said Eskom’s energy availability factor has improved to 65.16% but remains below its 70% target.
“The reality is that South Africa’s energy crisis has not been solved. It has mainly become less severe,” Beesley said.
He said the government has to urgently prioritise electricity pricing reform because millions of households cannot afford to switch on electricity even when supply is available.
“South Africa cannot industrialise if electricity remains unaffordable,” he said.
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