The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) has called a public hearing for 7 December 2026 on two electricity licence applications: a trading licence sought by Engie Energy Marketing South Africa (Pty) Ltd and an import-export licence sought by Energy Exchange of Southern Africa (Pty) Ltd. The notice, posted on NERSA’s website on 29 October, gives anyone who wants to speak until 16:30 on 30 November to register. For companies that buy large volumes of power, the filing is a concrete sign that private electricity traders keep coming to the regulator.
What the regulator’s notice actually says
NERSA’s notice lists two applicants. Engie Energy Marketing South Africa has applied for a trading electricity licence, with the location given as the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal and the distributor in the area described as “customers supplied by Eskom”. Energy Exchange of Southern Africa has applied for an import-export electricity licence, with the location given as South Africa and the SADC region and Eskom listed as the distributor.
The hearing runs from 09:30 to 13:00 on 7 December as a virtual meeting on MS Teams, with a live stream on X. Anyone who wants to attend or make oral representations must send a request by 16:30 on 30 November to NERSA’s public hearings office. People who cannot join can send written comments to the regulator’s trading and distribution licensing mailbox, which the notice gives as TdLicenseApplications@nersa.org.za. The application forms, according to the notice, sit on NERSA’s website under Notices and then Public Hearings.
One line in the notice matters for anyone planning to take part. A hearing on a particular application “will not take place” if nobody registers to make representations on it. In that case registered attendees are told, and a cancellation notice goes on the website. The regulator, in other words, is not promising a hearing for each application. It is promising one if someone shows up with something to say.
A trading licence and an import-export licence are different permissions
A trading licence, as the name implies, concerns the buying and selling of electricity, and that is the permission Engie is seeking for customers in two provinces. An import-export licence concerns cross-border flows of power. The notice does not say what either company intends to do with its licence, and I have not seen the application forms themselves, so what follows is context rather than a description of their plans.
Energy Exchange of Southern Africa is not new to the regulator. Engineering News reported in October 2024 that NERSA had already issued six trading licences since 2014, and the company was among the holders. The company’s own website, in a post dated 9 June 2025, describes it as a NERSA-licensed trader whose licence lets it offer electricity wheeling, which means moving power from a generator to a customer over the grid. The new application is therefore for a different type of licence, not for permission to trade at all.
On the import-export side, the same October 2024 report said NERSA had granted the country’s first private import-export licence to GreenCo Power Services, which had signed long-term power purchase agreements with producers in South Africa and Botswana in order to sell that electricity to Sibanye-Stillwater operations. That precedent shows what a licence of this type has been used for so far. It does not tell us what Energy Exchange has in mind.
Engie says it is building a trading business in South Africa
Engie is a large energy group, and its South African arm has a published account of what it is doing. In an article dated 22 April 2026, the group’s Supply and Energy Management unit said it is strengthening its presence to help industrial customers source and manage energy differently. It names Dirk Hendrix as managing director of its Southern Africa supply and energy management business and says he arrived in the country in late 2025. The article lists energy trading, contract structuring, aggregation and portfolio optimisation among the services the group brings, and notes that mining companies have already begun sourcing power in new ways. I could not find any statement from Engie about this specific licence application, and I did not contact either company, so I do not know the size or timing of the customer contracts it has in mind.
The licensing fight with Eskom has been paused, not settled
Trading licences have been contentious. In 2024 Eskom’s distribution division objected during public hearings on 18 July 2024, arguing that the regulator may not allow two or more licensees in one distribution area and accusing traders of cherry picking customers. NERSA’s decision-making body approved the licences anyway on 29 October 2024. Engineering News reported that Nhlanhla Gumede, speaking on the decision, drew a line between distributors, whose number needs to be limited because they run the physical network, and traders, who buy and sell power over those networks without operating them, and said there was no legislative or regulatory limit on the number of traders.
Eskom later went to court. Engineering News reported on 30 September 2025 that Eskom had launched a review in July of the licences granted to Green Electron Market, CBI Electric Apollo, GreenCo Power Services, Discovery Green and NOA Group Trading, and had then stayed the case so that a NERSA process on trading rules could continue. IOL reported on 27 February 2026 that Eskom, NERSA and the traders had jointly agreed a procedural stay, which it said was not a withdrawal of the review application, pending finalisation of the regulatory framework. The two reports are five months apart, and I could not establish whether they describe one agreement or successive steps. What both say is that the case is on hold, not over.
The rulebook the new licensees would operate under is still a draft
That framework is the draft electricity trading rules. An opinion piece in Engineering News from April 2026 describes an initial draft published in November 2025, public hearings in January 2026 at which Eskom raised significant objections, and a revised draft dated 12 April 2026 with comments due on 23 May. Commentary from two Bowmans lawyers, published on 21 July 2026, covers a third version. They write that under the draft, licensed traders would not be allowed to buy or sell directly in the planned wholesale electricity market during its first two phases, and that virtual wheeling would be limited to customers with connections above 100 kVA and only once that market is live. These are the lawyers’ reading of a draft, not final rules, and I have not seen the draft text itself.
What a licence is worth to a trader therefore depends partly on rules that are not final. NERSA’s own timetable for finishing them is not stated in the notice, and I could not find one.
What this means for businesses that buy power
For a manufacturer, miner, retailer or property owner, the practical effect is more potential suppliers and more contract structures to compare, not lower bills by default. A trading licence lets a company sell electricity; it does not set a price, and the savings in any deal come from the generation it has contracted, the grid charges and the wheeling terms. Customers in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal supplied by Eskom, who are the group named in Engie’s application, may see new offers if the licence is granted, but nothing in the notice says that will happen, or when.
Companies that already have or want a wheeling deal, or are weighing one, have a more immediate reason to read the notice: the hearing is open to public comment, and trading rules still to be finalised will govern deals signed now. Our earlier reporting covers the end of Eskom’s monopoly in 2027, how bills are becoming harder to read as the market opens, NERSA’s proposed ban on automated trading in the wholesale market, Ekurhuleni’s authority to buy 2,400MW from private producers and a property group’s solar project aimed at cutting reliance on Eskom.
What is still unknown
- What either company plans to do with its licence, and which customers it has lined up. The notice gives only the type of licence and the regions.
- Whether anyone will register to speak. Without a registration the hearing on that application is cancelled.
- Whether Eskom, as the distributor named for both applications, will object, as it did in 2024.
- When NERSA will decide, and whether the final trading rules will be in place first.
- Whether the paused Eskom court review is a single stay or has been renewed, given the differing reports.
This article is based on NERSA’s published notice, Engie’s and Energy Exchange’s own web pages and published reports. It reports what the documents say and carries no view on whether either licence should be granted.
