The South African National Energy Development Institute (SANEDI) in collaboration with the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) have established a national register for Energy Service Companies (ESCo register).

The ESCo register is an important tool to facilitate the market development and growth of ESCo’s in South Africa and will be utilized by both the public and private sector organizations to identify, plan, develop, finance or implement energy efficiency projects, including energy efficiency demand side management (EEDSM) and small-scale renewable energy embedded generation. The register will regularly be reviewed and updated, ensuring the relevance thereof, but also providing ESCo’s with the opportunity to achieve a higher classification level as they mature.

The register makes provision for the inclusion of ESCo’s across the value chain of energy services offered, e.g. Auditing, Measurement & Verification, Technology Installers, Consulting Engineers as well as full ESCo’s that provide energy services and financing, and as such this RfR is open to all energy service companies.

The objective of the ESCo register is to contribute to the development of the ESCo market in South Africa. The ESCo’s selected are classified into various categories (from partial to full classification) in terms of their competencies, size and experience. In addition, incubation and capacity building measures will be designed and offered to the various ESCo categories. Overall, the aim is to improve the quality of ESCo’s operating in the market in order to improve the quantity and quality of projects implemented. To build a resilient energy services sector, capable of supporting transition and capacity building for smaller companies in the market