The government is exploring selling South Africa’s excess wind generation capacity to regional neighbours and procuring battery storage technologies to support the national grid and address the issue of curtailment, Electricity and Energy Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa announced at Windaba 2026. 

Hosted by the South African Wind Energy Association (SAWEA) at the Cape Town International Convention Centre on 6 and 7 October 2026, the first day of Windaba saw robust exchanges underpinned by the theme “Implementing Watt Matters: Policy. Power. People.” 

During his keynote address, Minister of Electricity and Energy, Honourable Dr Ramokgopa, noted that global energy trends, including the surge in demand driven by AI and data centres, are positioning energy security as an increasingly important driver of economic growth and industrial development. 

South Africa’s grid is one of the largest in the world and can be a catalyst for energy growth in the region, the minister said. Highlighting electricity, including wind energy, as a critical tool for socio-economic development in the country rather than simply a commodity, he said it can also be a primary driver of industrialisation. 

The Minister also addressed the issue of curtailment, which is the deliberate reduction or shutting down of electricity output from energy sources such as wind turbines when it exceeds the grid’s capacity to transmit it. He said that accelerating the expansion of transmission infrastructure is essential to resolve curtailment issues and accommodate thousands of megawatts of new generation capacity. 

"We're losing potential revenue of close to R49-billion per annum [through curtailment],” he said. In response, the government is looking at exporting excess wind generation capacity to the SADC and the continent, using excess capacity to benefit the South African economy, as well as accelerating the provision of 4.6 GW of battery storage. 

The Acting Deputy Director-General in the Department of Electricity and Energy, Mr Mthokozisi Mpofu, added that procurement design needs to address curtailment directly as renewable energy penetration increases, potentially requiring future projects to co-locate with energy storage. 

The National Transmission Company South Africa’s Gav Hurford and Paul Davel provided some operational insights into the constraints the system operator faces in dealing with the complex issue of curtailment. They said that because South Africa lacks a flexible fleet to supply the peak periods, it is necessary to keep the coal-fired base load running to meet the peaks, which displaces some of the renewables on the system. 

Proposed solutions and mitigation measures include accelerating utility-scale battery storage deployment to absorb midday excess and discharge it during evening peak periods, wheeling surplus renewable power into neighbouring countries, and moving customers away from flat-rate tariffs towards dynamic time-of-use pricing to incentivise higher power consumption during midday periods, they explained. 

Opening this year’s Windaba, SAWEA Interim CEO Titania Stefanus-Zincke said wind energy held the potential to be “an engine of inclusive growth”. She hailed sector milestones such as reaching over 800 MW of wind energy facilities reach commercial operation in 2026, with the expectation of surpassing 1 GW across the private and public sectors by year-end. She also praised the progress made in grid expansion, including the installation of 116km of transmission lines by wind developers. 

However, she stressed that the focus must now shift to bridging the gap between policy, planning and project implementation. “With around 3 GW of wind [energy] required year-on-year from 2030, the time to build the pipeline and the grid – including the capacity, logistics and skilled workforce to support it – is now, not later. At this 15th Windaba, let this be the moment we stop asking what matters and start implementing.” 

Day two of Windaba is expected to focus on import tariffs, trade policy, grid access, grid code compliance, the South African Wholesale Electricity Market, the South African Renewable Energy Master Plan, skills development and offshore wind deployment, among other topical issues concerning the renewable energy landscape.