Eleven years, zero megawatts delivered: South Africa’s gas-to-power procurement failure

• No preferred bidders have been appointed under the first bid window of South Africa's Gas Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (GASIPPPP) after evaluation of the four bids received by the closing date of 29 May 2026.
• The four bids offering 2,830 MW demonstrate substantial interest from IPPs for the programme, but none satisfied the mandatory functional criteria due to lack of long-term gas supply assurances.
• The failure marks another setback in more than a decade of government efforts to procure gas-fired electricity generation from independent power producers (IPPs) and raises questions about the country's gas-to-power ambitions.