Enerthia Energy works across energy consultancy, business development, product and service endorsement and funding, and this week’s audio briefing sits squarely in business development territory. The SAWEM launch date has moved twice — from April 2026 to the third quarter of 2026 — and senior market advisers now expect the first phase only in April 2027. This episode looks at what a moving date does to a project’s assumptions, and how to structure a deal that does not depend on it.
Prefer to listen on YouTube? The full episode is there too.
- SAWEM was set to open on 1 April 2026; the launch moved to the third quarter of 2026, and senior market advisers now expect the first phase around April 2027.
- The building blocks are real — a licensed market operator, a market code with the regulator, and participants in certification — but the trading rules were still in public comment at the end of August.
- A moving date is a planning problem: revenue assumptions, parked procurement decisions and funders pricing timing risk.
- The answer is structural: bilateral PPAs, wheeling and trader aggregation work under today’s rules and get better if the market opens.
Where does the SAWEM launch date stand now?
Officially, the South African Wholesale Electricity Market is still scheduled to open before the end of September 2026; unofficially, senior market advisers now expect the first phase to go live around April 2027. The original date was 1 April 2026. In March, the National Transmission Company confirmed it would not be met after an assessment with NERSA and industry participants found more work was needed on market, operational and regulatory readiness. That is two moves in six months, with the official window now weeks from closing.
Why does the market keep slipping?
Because a credible market needs every piece working before the first trade, and several pieces are still being finished. The market code has been submitted to NERSA. The third version of the trading rules only closed for public comment on 28 August. The trading platform and its price-formation algorithms still need final approval, and only participants certified through the market school will be eligible to trade. Each item is progress — the National Transmission Company holds its Market Operator Licence and the phased design is settled — but a launch is the last domino, not the first. We covered what SAWEM changes for large users in July; all of it still stands. Only the date has moved.
What does a moving date do to a project?
It quietly undermines every assumption that was pinned to it. A revenue model that counts on trading income from a fixed quarter is now a guess. Procurement decisions parked “until the market lands” stay parked, and every month of waiting is a month of tariff exposure. Funders are asked to price a timing risk that nobody — not the developer, not the offtaker, not the regulator — actually controls. None of this means the reform is failing. It means the launch date is the wrong foundation to build a deal on.
How do you structure a deal that does not depend on the date?
Contract under today’s rules, and let the market be upside rather than a dependency. Bilateral power purchase agreements, trader-led wheeling and aggregation structures all work now, and bilateral contracting is expected to continue alongside SAWEM well after launch. A deal built this way gets better if the market opens on time — more routes to sell, sharper price discovery — but it does not need the market to open at all. That is the test worth applying to any term sheet this year: if the launch slips again, does this deal still work? Structuring that answer is the business development work we do with developers, offtakers and funders every week.
Plan for the market. Contract for today. That is how you stay ahead of a date that keeps moving.
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