A South African city just won the right to buy 2,400 megawatts of its own power

Ekurhuleni, a metropolitan municipality in Gauteng, has received national approval to procure about 2,400 megawatts of new electricity from independent producers — the largest such city application yet in South Africa, dwarfing earlier determinations for eThekwini (400 MW) and Cape Town (220 MW). The mix is led by 1,237 megawatts of solar, alongside waste-to-energy, newer technologies and some gas, with estimated infrastructure investment of ZAR 6.2 billion (about $378 million). Ekurhuleni is the first city to seek a Ministerial Determination under Section 34 of the Electricity Regulation Act — and its approval hands other cities a worked example of how to take charge of their own power supply.

SDG 7 · Affordable and clean energy — Mechanism: policy reform