A new Africa Energy exhibition and conference has been announced for Johannesburg. This article is based on a statement from the organisers, sent to us by a public relations agency, which we have checked against the organiser’s own event page and other sources. Where we could not confirm something independently, we say so at the end.
What has been announced
The show is called Africa Energy 2027 (also branded Africa Energy Expo). According to the organiser’s event page, it runs for three days, from Tuesday 31 August to Thursday 2 September 2027, at the Gallagher Convention Centre in Johannesburg. The page names Informa Markets, a trading division of Informa PLC, as the organiser. The statement we received describes it as a launch by inD, a partnership between Informa and Dubai World Trade Centre.
The event page positions the show around what it calls an era of execution in South Africa’s power market, driven by market reform, grid constraints, private generation and growing industrial demand. It lists four product areas: generation, transmission and distribution, efficiency, and storage. The intended audience is broad: government and regulators, utilities, contractors, consultants and engineers, distributors, and end-user industries including manufacturing, mining, real estate, healthcare and agriculture. Visitors can register their interest and companies can enquire about exhibiting through the same page.
Who is behind it
Law firm Clifford Chance, which advised Informa, said in February 2026 that the partnership, branded inD and headquartered in Dubai, combines Informa’s wholly owned business-to-business live events operation in the UAE and the wider India, Middle East and Africa region with the live events business of Dubai World Trade Centre. It said inD owns more than 40 major event brands across sectors including healthcare, energy, aviation, food and technology, with expected annual revenue above US$650 million. The published material we could access does not set out the ownership split between the two partners.
The attendance figures do not match
The statement says organisers expect more than 5,000 attendees. The organiser’s own event page gives lower figures: 3,000 or more energy professionals, 700 or more delegates and 6,000 square metres of exhibition space. These may measure different things, such as total footfall against registered professionals, but the page does not explain the difference. Readers weighing a stand or a ticket should treat all of these as the organisers’ projections for a first edition, not results, and ask for the basis of the numbers before committing budget.
Other energy events on the calendar
Africa Energy is entering a field that already has established dates. Confirmed from organiser pages:
- Africa Energy Indaba: 2 to 4 March 2027 at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, its 19th edition. It lists an IPP and PPA conference, a nuclear forum and the South African Energy Investment Forum on 4 March.
- Power and Electricity World Africa, run by Terrapinn: 16 to 18 March 2027 at the Gallagher Convention Centre, Johannesburg.
For companies, the practical point is that the first half of 2027 already offers two large South African gatherings before the new September show.
The policy backdrop
The organisers frame the show around market reform, and the reform itself is on the record. Our earlier report on the end of Eskom’s monopoly in 2027 and our look at how the opening power market is changing electricity bills cover what it means in practice. According to the South African government news agency, the Electricity Regulation Amendment Act, signed by the President in August 2024, creates an open market platform for competitive wholesale and retail trading of electricity, makes market operation a licensable activity under the regulator NERSA, and requires access to the grid to be objective, transparent and non-discriminatory. It also provides for the Transmission System Operator to become an independent entity within five years, with the National Transmission Company of South Africa acting in that role until then. Suppliers, developers and large power users should read the Act’s detail for themselves, since the Market Code that will set the future trading rules had no published deadline in the report we read.
What this means for readers
If you sell equipment or services into power projects, or buy large amounts of electricity, the event is a possible place to meet counterparties in the second half of 2027. Our guide to investing in South African renewable energy sets out the programmes, private power options, tax and risks that sit behind those conversations. It is early: no speaker list, price or programme was available on the page we reviewed, so there is little to act on beyond registering interest.
What we could not confirm
- The patronage of the Department of Electricity and Energy. The organiser’s event page states it, but we found no statement from the Department or from gov.za confirming it.
- The figure of more than 5,000 attendees. It appears in the statement but not on the event page, which gives lower numbers.
- The ownership split between Informa and Dubai World Trade Centre in inD.
- Any speakers, ticket prices or programme for the show.
- The Gallagher Convention Centre’s own details: its website did not load when we tried, so the venue is confirmed only through the organiser’s and Terrapinn’s pages.
