Energy regulator Nersa registered 3.13GW of new generation capacity between July and September, nearly four times the 804MW it registered in the previous quarter, as a handful of large wind farms and solar plants swelled the pipeline.
The 144 facilities registered in the quarter carry an estimated investment value of R78.2-billion, Nersa said in a statement on Thursday. That is close to the R85-billion worth of projects it registered in the whole of 2023, and more than in any full calendar year before that.
In the previous five quarters, registered capacity never exceeded 2GW, and investment value peaked at R51.9-billion.
Fewer, bigger projects
Three wind facilities – two in the Western Cape and one in Mpumalanga – account for 1.06GW, or about a third of the quarter’s capacity. Solar photovoltaic (PV) plants made up 139 of the facilities and 2.05GW. The rest is a single 3MW battery storage system and an 18MW co-generation plant, which produces both heat and power, both in KwaZulu-Natal.
Registrations by technology, July to September 2026
| Technology | Facilities | Capacity (MW) | Average size (MW) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solar PV | 139 | 2 045 | 14.7 |
| Wind | 3 | 1 063 | 354.3 |
| Co-generation | 1 | 18 | 18.0 |
| Battery storage | 1 | 3 | 3.0 |
| Total | 144 | 3 129 | 21.7 |
Source: Nersa
Wind farms of that size can be registered at all because of reforms made during load shedding. The government raised the cap on generation projects exempt from licensing from 1MW to 100MW in 2021, then removed it altogether in December 2022. Since then, projects of any size can register with Nersa instead of applying for a generation licence.
The shift to larger projects is clear against the same quarter last year, when Nersa registered 181 facilities with a combined 1.4GW and R30.8-billion of investment. This time it registered 37 fewer facilities but more than twice the capacity, with the average facility growing from 7.7MW to 21.7MW.
Almost all the new capacity will connect to Eskom’s network: 76 facilities totalling 3.08GW and R77.6-billion. The other 68 will connect to municipal networks and add up to just 50MW.
Gauteng registered the most facilities, 47, but they total only 25MW, about half a megawatt each. The Western Cape led on capacity and investment, with 36 facilities, 1.19GW and R24.6-billion, followed on capacity by the Free State (543MW) and Limpopo (484MW).
Registrations by province, July to September 2026
| Province | Facilities | Capacity (MW) | Investment (R-million) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Western Cape | 36 | 1 189 | 24 604 |
| Free State | 8 | 543 | 15 032 |
| Limpopo | 13 | 484 | 16 266 |
| North West | 6 | 416 | 6 070 |
| Northern Cape | 1 | 240 | 11 000 |
| Mpumalanga | 9 | 191 | 4 601 |
| KwaZulu-Natal | 16 | 39 | 215 |
| Gauteng | 47 | 25 | 343 |
| Eastern Cape | 8 | 2 | 32 |
| Total | 144 | 3 129 | 78 163 |
Source: Nersa. Ranked by capacity. Nersa gives the total as R78.16-billion; the difference is rounding.
Faster, but not the fastest
Nersa said it processed applications in an average of nine working days, “marking a notable improvement” on the 10 days it took in the same quarter last year. Turnaround was also 10 days in April to June, but Nersa reported an average of eight days in January to March.
Registered, not built
Since the registration regime began in 2018, Nersa has registered 2 763 facilities with a combined 23.26GW and an estimated investment value of R487.7-billion. With one quarter of 2026 left, this year’s tally stands at 380 facilities, 5.26GW and R126.6-billion, against 7.46GW and R158-billion for all of 2025.
Registration is a regulatory step, and Nersa’s statement does not say how many of these projects have reached construction or commercial operation.
The 2.05GW of new solar also lands on a grid already struggling to absorb midday output, a hidden risk for private wheeling deals. “We had a particularly bad time during winter 2026, where we’ve seen curtailment of up to 3 000MW in a particular day,” Gav Hurford, acting GM of the system operator at the National Transmission Company South Africa, said in October. – (c) 2026 NewsCentral Media
