The rapid adoption of wind energy in the renewable energy mix can be seen in many industrialized nations in the past decade, in particular the need to agreed greenhouse gas reduction and stable energy supply are seen as a sound vision for a sustainable energy policy'. In an emerging market such as South Africa there are abundant renewable resources including wind energy, however there is low adoption observed to date. This study investigates barriers to entry in the South African wind energy sector and what the priorities are to remove such barriers for successful deployment of wind technology. Therefore, it was required to examine successful deployment of wind energy in the European Union and how such barriers were removed; this was set in the current status of the renewable energy sector and existing barriers in South Africa. It was necessary to gain insight of the inter-related issues on opening a traditional fossil fuel based energy market to a transitional implementation of renewable energy provisioning, considering the current utility monopoly based energy landscape in South Africa.