Author Archive for: Engineering News

In this article, Tutwa Consulting Group Just Energy Transition Programme senior associate engineer Stuart Reneke and economist Danae Govender write that South Africa needs a comprehensive monitoring system to ensure it is able to achieve a just energy transition.

South Africa’s energy crisis has considerably impacted the country’s economy, with loadshedding affecting food security, infrastructure and communication networks, as well as various key economic sectors, like mining, tourism and manufacturing. Clean energy company Scatec sub-Saharan Africa executive VP Jan Fourie has described the conundrum as not just an energy crisis, but a fossil fuel dependency crisis.

Business body Business for South Africa (B4SA), together with the Presidency, on March 9 announced the establishment of a Resource Mobilisation Fund (RMF) to help capacitate the National Energy Crisis Committee (Necom).

Necom aims to reduce the severity and frequency of loadshedding in the short term, as well as achieve a secure and sustainable supply of energy in South Africa in the long term.

RMF chairperson and B4SA chairperson Martin Kingston explains that various individuals and private sector organisations have pledged their support to the President’s Energy Action Plan (EAP) announced in July last year, and came together to establish the RMF as a mechanism for business in South Africa to support the implementation of the plan.

Newly appointed Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa believes government will be ambitious in its plans to stop loadshedding, but he is not yet ready to say when that is expected to happen. “Loadshedding, and I want to emphasise [this] on national TV we are going to resolve it… [but] it is highly irresponsible to just shoot from the hip and say this date, that date,” Ramokgopa said in an interview with the SABC on Thursday evening.

Amid the current energy crisis, declared to be a state of disaster during last month’s State of the Nation Address by President Cyril Ramaphosa, battery energy storage systems (BESS) could potentially provide some near-term relief in areas of grid constraint, while also allowing households some protection against loadshedding. The ‘Understanding Energy Storage’ handbook – released last year by the African Legal Support Facility in partnership with the Commercial Law Development Program and Power Africa – outlines the implications of implementing BESS as an alternative to traditional power solutions.