South Africa’s major industrial energy consumers and the broader C&I energy sector will once again share a platform this October, as the EIUG Conference co-locates with the C&I Energy + Storage Summit Johannesburg on 28–29 October 2026 at The Maslow Hotel, Sandton in Johannesburg.
The partnership between the Energy Intensive Users Group of Southern Africa (EIUG) and VUKA Group, now in its third year, brings the demand side and the solution side of South Africa’s energy transition into one room. EIUG members — the mines, smelters, manufacturers and processors that account for a substantial share of the country’s electricity consumption — will meet the developers, financiers, technology providers and policymakers shaping how industrial energy is generated, traded and managed.
The timing is deliberate. South Africa’s industrial sector faces persistent tariff escalation, mounting decarbonisation pressure from mechanisms such as the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), and a rapidly restructuring electricity market — from unbundling and the emergence of a wholesale market to expanding wheeling frameworks. The 2026 programme confronts these pressures directly, opening with a ministerial keynote address and a keynote panel examining the threats and opportunities that will define industrial competitiveness in the coming decade.
Across two days, the EIUG Conference will cover:
- Industrialisation under threat? — a frank examination of whether South Africa’s industrial base is adapting or contracting under energy constraints
- Renewable energy integration for heavy industry — real-world case studies from mining, cement, manufacturing and metals
- Practical masterclasses on finance for transition — considerations for alternative power generation, grid security, and an end-to-end understanding of the South African Carbon Tax
- Electricity market reform — the practical realities of market readiness as unbundling and wheeling frameworks expand
- A green hydrogen workshop exploring how surplus renewable generation and anchor industrial demand could unlock integrated hydrogen corridors
Co-location gives attendees access to the full C&I Energy + Storage Summit Johannesburg programme under a single registration, connecting industrial energy users directly with the storage, generation, trading and financing solutions on the exhibition floor.
Africa Fact: On the 1 March 1979, the New York Times carried an article on its front page also page sixteen that was entitled Nubian Monarchy called Oldest. In this article we were assured that: “Evidence of the oldest recognizable monarchy in human history, preceding the rise of the earliest Egyptian kings by several generations, has been discovered in artifacts from ancient Nubia” (i.e. the territory of the northern Sudan and the southern portion of modern Egypt.)
Cujo
If you believe nobody gives a hoot about you, dare to miss a number of credit card payments and see the love that you will get.
Steel
Which unit describes the intensity of light in South Africa? Nelson Candela