South Africa’s Nedbank Group released an ambitious new energy policy on April 22, containing a commitment to reduce its exposure to all fossil fuels to zero by 2045, as well as a pledge to halt all new thermal coal-mine financing by January 1, 2025. Simultaneously, Nedbank said it would scale up its renewable-energy commitments, announcing a target for R2-billion-worth of embedded-generation financing by 2022, in addition to the R50-billion limits already committed to South Africa’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme, which resumed this month following a seven-year interruption.
Diversified miner Exxaro Resources has elected the group’s climate change specialist Dr Lerato Khumalo as vice-chairperson for the Industry Task Team on Climate Change (ITTCC). The voluntary, nonprofit association comprises several local energy-intensive companies across different business sectors, including the likes of Exxaro, Sasol and Anglo American, which will collaborate to reduce South Africa’s carbon footprint.
As countries continue their progress in transitioning to clean energy, global economic body the World Economic Forum (WEF) says it is critical over the next decade to root the transition in economic, political and social practices to ensure progress is irreversible. The energy transition requires a full transformation of the global energy, economic and social system, beginning now, as the next decade is crucial to delivering on climate goals, it states.
In this article, South African Wind Energy Association (SAWEA) CEO Ntombifuthi Ntuli writes about the South African wind energy sector’s role on the road to a net zero carbon economy by 2050. Following the release of the Global Wind Energy Council’s ‘Global Wind Report 2021’, the buzz in the sector is around reaching net zero carbon economies. This is not surprising as the council’s annual flagship dossier sets the tone in preparation for the 2021 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s twenty-sixth Conference of Parties, also known as COP26, and highlights wind power’s role on the road to net zero carbon economy by 2050.
Civil society organisations are calling for public hearings into the decision by the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) to include projects by Karpowership among the preferred bidders for the Risk Mitigation Independent Power Producers (RMIPPP). Environmental justice organisation the Green Connection says it has been very vocal, adding its voice to the public outcry, amid concerns about the choice of emergency power, which will see South Africa tied to fossil fuels for another 20 years.
The transformative role of clean, safe and affordable energy in reducing poverty and inequality, and in improving the quality of life of poor South African households as envisaged in the 1998 Energy White Paper, has failed to materialise to any significant degree, says State institution and research developer Public Affairs Research Institute (Pari) senior researcher Dr Tracy Ledger.
In the second working paper on energy and society, she reveals that the overwhelming reason for this failure is the collapse of energy policy and governance, and the absence of effective oversight of how local municipalities have actually delivered energy services to households.
Global energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions could surge by 1.5-billion tonnes in 2021 to 33-billion tonnes, reversing most of last year’s decline caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, as rebounding coal demand in the electricity sector more than offsets record renewables deployments. This forecast is made in a new International Energy Agency (IEA) report, which states that the expected 5% increase in CO2 emissions will represent the biggest yearly increase since 2010 and the second largest in history.
Africa- and UK-focused energy company Kibo Energy on April 19 said it had started an extensive due diligence process for the potential acquisition of all or part of a prospective portfolio of renewable energy projects in the UK. The portfolio comprises several standalone renewable energy projects, focusing on the generation and/or storage of electric power from renewable generation sources.
Singapore-based investment company Pavilion Capital has become a limited partner in venture capital manager AP Ventures’ Fund II.
In welcoming Pavilion Capital as its eighth limited partner, AP Ventures and its portfolio companies “look forward to benefitting” from working with a Singapore-based investor focused on the North Asian and Southeast Asian economies, states AP Ventures.
An energy expert has written to the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure (DPWI) and the Independent Power Producer (IPP) Office to highlight the expensive shortcomings of the Risk Mitigation Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (RMIPPPP), which he says should be replaced by a materially larger, yet more cost-effective, procurement programme based primarily on renewables and storage, rather than power ships. DPWI, together with The Presidency, is overseeing the implementation of the Strategic Infrastructure Projects, or SIPS, earmarked for priority implementation as part of government’s economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. The RMIPPPP is one of the 62 initial SIPS Gazetted in line with the Infrastructure Development Act.
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