Private investment in South Africa’s power grid could slip towards the end of the decade after the government pushed back the request for proposals (RFP) for its Independent Transmission Projects (ITP) programme to the second quarter of 2027. The ITP is the plan to let private companies build and operate high-voltage power lines, and the delayed grid RFP was flagged by Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) chief executive Busisiwe Mavuso, according to BusinessTech.
The Department of Electricity and Energy and National Treasury announced the change in a joint statement on 1 October 2026. An RFP is the formal document in which the state invites bidders to submit binding offers. It had been promised by no later than the third quarter of 2026.
What changed and why
According to the government’s own update, published by SAnews, the departments held a first round of engagement with the seven pre-qualified bidders and decided to add a further targeted round of consultation before the final RFP is issued. The statement says a second draft RFP package will go to the seven bidders before the end of 2026. It is meant to give bidders and lenders another chance to flag remaining problems with whether the deals can be financed.
The consultation is time-bound and is not an open call for public comment. The second draft is expected to include a draft non-binding term sheet for the credit guarantee vehicle. Feedback will then be assessed, accepted changes made and the package taken through governance and approval before the final RFP in the second quarter of 2027.
The delay is the second adjustment to the schedule. In November 2025, the departments said the procurement timeline was being realigned with the setting up of the credit guarantee vehicle, and that the final RFP would be released no later than the third quarter of 2026.
The scale of the programme
Phase I of the ITP covers about 1 164 kilometres of new transmission lines. Bloomberg reported, in a version carried by BusinessTech, that interest has come from international developers, including a company owned by Indian billionaire Gautam Adani and Chinese firms. The government statement describes Phase I as the first step in bringing in private participation as an additional way to deliver grid projects, and says it intends to follow it with a pipeline of further projects.
The wider plan is for the Department of Electricity and Energy to build 14 500 kilometres of new transmission lines by 2034, according to BusinessTech. The National Transmission Company South Africa (NTCSA) was formed to separate transmission from Eskom. The Electricity Sector Market Transformation Position Paper, one of the gazetted policy documents behind the reform, sets out how companies can operate in the sector.
The credit guarantee vehicle
A central piece is the credit guarantee vehicle (CGV), which is meant to reassure lenders. Mavuso said the Independent Transmission System and Market Operator is still being established, so bidders “would face a counterparty that does not yet have its own balance sheet or credit history”. She said the guarantee vehicle “provides an important risk management function that will ensure bidders have the confidence to make long-term multi-billion rand investments.”
The government update gives the progress so far. The core joint development agreement between National Treasury and FSD Africa was signed on 2 July 2026, and the vehicle was registered and incorporated on 12 August 2026, with its directors, auditor and corporate secretariat appointed. Investor due diligence ran from 28 September to 2 October 2026. National Treasury and the Development Bank of Southern Africa have signed a memorandum of agreement under which the bank will host the vehicle’s project implementation unit. Further due diligence is planned for the first quarter of 2027, with a binding term sheet targeted by the end of that quarter.
The 2025 statement said the vehicle will be a private non-life insurer, independent of government and regulated by the Prudential Authority.
Mavuso’s concerns
Mavuso called the delay “an unfortunate slippage of the timetable” but said it is preferable to rushing. “A delay is better than rushing to market with a call for proposals that can’t then be properly managed or lead to excessive pricing because bidders can’t assess the risks,” she said. “A failed procurement would lead to more delays and be more expensive than a pause while government gets it right.” She added that “there has been real institutional capacity building to support the process.”
She was still worried about the dates. “The timelines are a concern,” she said. “On the current trajectory, the new grid infrastructure is unlikely to be in operation by the end of the decade.” She described the grid as “already the binding constraint for new electricity generation, as we cannot get electricity from where it is cheap to generate to where it needs to be consumed”, and said “a clear timetable for that whole process now would help manage expectations and enable planning.”
Wider grid delays
Bloomberg’s report places the delay among other setbacks. It said Eskom plans to install 14 000 kilometres of line over the next decade, but that in the year to March 2026 crews built less than two-thirds of a 423 kilometre target. Government auctions for private renewable power have slowed because of a lack of grid connections, according to the report.
It also said the future of the Independent Power Producers Office, which runs the clean-energy auctions and now includes the ITP programme, is being reconsidered. Electricity and Energy Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa told lawmakers that the decision has been paused, and that it must be settled whether generation and transmission should sit “under one umbrella” or be separated.
Sources: BusinessTech, SAnews.
