Cell C is out. Electricity is in for Blu Label
Blu Label, the South African digital distribution group, built its business around airtime, vouchers and payments before making a major push into telecoms through Cell C. Now, it is moving into a much bigger infrastructure market: electricity.
The company is positioning Blu Energy, its energy unit, across the electricity value chain, from trading and wheeling power to renewable generation, battery storage, and municipal billing. In February 2026, it was granted a multi-year electricity trading licence from the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) and says it has identified about 400MW of potential capacity, with plans to deploy up to 180MW in the near term.
Blu Label wants to use the payments, vending and municipal infrastructure it has built over decades to become a middleman between power producers, municipalities and large electricity users.
“We have got trading, we’ve got wheeling, and then the bigger concentration for us is how do we start deploying green energy on this side of the municipal grid, where we plug directly into the municipal grid,” Mark Levy, Blu Label’s co-chief executive officer (CEO), told TechCabal.
He said the company plans to participate across the broader power supply chain, from trading and wheeling to “nodal production”, battery storage and dispensing power at different times of the day.
Blu Label is Cell C’s largest shareholder, owning 49.53% of the mobile operator. The company’s latest results, released on Wednesday, show that the strategy builds on an existing electricity business. Electricity revenue generated on behalf of utilities rose 11% to R24.3 billion ($1.52 billion) during the year, although commissions fell 10% to R144 million ($9 million) as margins came under pressure.
That pressure is part of why Blu Label is moving further up the electricity value chain. Levy said the company wants to capture value beyond vending commissions. It has already contracted 28MW of rooftop solar capacity, while its wider pipeline includes ground-mounted projects, with some deployments expected to begin in the third or fourth quarter of 2026.