Enerthia Energy works across four connected offerings — energy consultancy, business development, product and service endorsement, and funding origination. This briefing sits where the first two meet: the coming shift from a single buyer to a competitive wholesale electricity market, and what it changes for anyone buying power at scale.
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What is actually being built for the wholesale electricity market
The South African Wholesale Electricity Market will let generators, traders and large customers trade power directly rather than routing everything through Eskom. The National Transmission Company South Africa was granted its Market Operator licence in December 2025 and submitted the Market Code — the rulebook for how power is bought and sold — to the regulator in February 2026. Written comments closed in June and a public hearing was held on 1 July.
The timeline has moved, twice
NTCSA confirmed in April that the 1 April 2026 launch would not be met and shifted it to the third quarter. Industry expectation has since slipped further: energy strategy advisor Dominic Goncalves of Cresco Project Finance told pv magazine in late July that the first phase is now likely to go live in April 2027.
Seven reforms running at once
NERSA’s regulation dashboard, updated 7 July 2026, tracks seven parallel projects. Trading rules are in a second round of consultation and targeted for finalisation by the end of September 2026. A vesting contract framework and a wholesale tariff methodology are both out for comment with hearings in August, alongside transmission planning rules and a price and tariff rule for unbundled prices.
What changes for a large user
Today most buyers hold one contract with one counterparty. In a traded market, demand shifts from the cheapest renewable energy towards firmed, dispatchable energy delivered when it is needed. Transmission rights, grid access and where generation sits start to matter as much as the asset itself. Developers have to treat route to market as part of project design. Corporate buyers can shape procurement around their actual load. Funders move from underwriting one offtaker to assessing a portfolio of contracted and market revenues.
The work happens before the market opens, not after.
Enerthia originates and structures funding. If you want to understand what a competitive wholesale market does to your load and your contracting position, that conversation starts now.
Decks and further reading: enerthiaenergy.co.za/resources