For South Africa, the quest for energy, climate and economic development grows more urgent by the year.
For provinces, this path of progress is perilous in various ways as mines endure job losses, green energy projects wrestle with grid constraints, farms lay at the mercy of extreme weather, and cities are stifled by waste and emissions.
In the search for sustainable, locally led solutions, applications are now open for the National Cleantech Innovation Challenge (NCIC) 2026m, which elevates practical, locally grounded solutions to tangible provincial challenges.
NCIC 2026 breaks from the traditional single, centralised competition model in a move led by the Technology Innovation Agency in partnership with NGIN, various regional innovation hubs and entrepreneurial support organisation Start-Up Culture.
This year, the competition consists of nine provincial challenges, each focused on a predefined market or technology gap that hinders individual provincial development.
“This is all built around actionable delivery,” says Vusi Skosana, executive for innovation and enabling support at the Technology Innovation Agency.
“All our provinces are beset by different transition realities. We wanted to create a framework where national coordination can support solutions ready to be tested and taken to market by local innovators.”
Skosana says this year’s competitions comes provinces are pressured to translate policy into action.
Mpumalanga is navigating the move away from coal and the need to create alternative sources of employment. The Northern and Western Cape are expanding renewable energy generation, but the grid remains volatile. Farming provinces like the Free State are under immense strain from declining soil quality, climate events and the legacy of mining. This is all while urban centres like Gauteng face mounting waste volumes and transport bottlenecks.
“With NCIC 2026, we place small and medium enterprises at the centre of these responses,” Skosana says. “Applications are open to all South Africa-based innovators, entrepreneurs, SMMEs and research teams with scalable cleantech solutions aligned to provincial priorities.”
According to the challenge rules, each province has been allocated a defined challenge to solve. These include:
Eastern Cape – Waste-to-value in urban and rural areas
Free State – Regenerative agriculture in large-scale commercial farming
Gauteng – Smart mobility cleantech challenge
KwaZulu-Natal – Clean port logistics
Limpopo – Regenerative Agriculture in Small Scale Farming
Mpumalanga – Clean energy
North West – Rehabilitation of mining lands for agricultural use
Western Cape – Hybrid optimisation of wind, solar, and biomass technologies
Northern Cape – Renewable energy generation and transmission
Applications are open to all South Africa-based innovators, entrepreneurs, SMMEs and research teams. Applications close on 21 April. For full eligibility criteria and application details, visit www.ncic-sa.org.