South Africa’s electricity policy is at a crossroads. Its historical dependence on cheap coal for approximately 90 per cent of its electricity generation is under threat from a variety of factors. This paper firstly examines how the governance of South Africa’s electricity is inextricably bound up with the country’s historical dependence on cheap coal for export-oriented industry and complex political and economic legacy which has shaped its minerals-energy complex (Fine and Rustomjee 1996). Secondly it finds that despite regulatory hold-ups and departmental tensions, power dynamics in the electricity sector are shifting with the potential introduction of private renewable energy generation into the energy mix.