Published 18 June 2026
What does it take to keep South African businesses competitive? Andrew Taylor explains.
NOA Head of Trading on the energy challenge, the aggregation model and where the market is heading
South African businesses are navigating a difficult energy environment. Electricity prices have risen by more than 900% over the last decade. For energy-intensive industries – mining, manufacturing, smelting – electricity can account for 40% or more of total operating costs. At the same time, carbon tax obligations are tightening and international customers are applying growing pressure around decarbonisation.
The question facing many businesses is not whether to act on energy, but how.
In this interview, NOA co-founder and Head of Trading Andrew Taylor explains how NOA was built to answer exactly that question – and why the model matters for the businesses it serves.
Andrew explains how NOA’s aggregation and trading platform works: drawing on both NOA-owned generation facilities and partnerships with independent power producers, diversified across geography and technology, to build a blended energy supply that can be matched precisely to a customer’s consumption profile. It’s an approach that makes utility-scale renewable energy accessible to companies, like Netcare or Redefine Properties, that could not justify the complexity and capital of bilateral procurement on their own.
He also addresses the regulatory landscape head-on. The South African energy market is in transition: the Electricity Regulation Act is reshaping the sector, the wholesale electricity market is coming into force, and the complexity of procurement decisions is increasing. Andrew’s view is clear – this is exactly why an experienced energy partner matters, and why NOA’s role is to take that complexity off a customer’s desk.
And he sets out what’s next for NOA: a focused 24-month drive to deepen renewable energy penetration for South African customers, while building towards a generation portfolio of more than 5 GW by 2030.
If you want to understand what NOA does and why it was built the way it is, this is worth 8 minutes of your time.