By Lesedi Sibiya-Diplomatic insider

South Africa over the last decade has experienced severe setbacks in regards to energy which has caused major economic disruption due to load shedding and the lack of energy security that the country currently faces. At the Coal and Energy Transition high-level meeting today in Houghton, key industry leaders had engaged in dialogue over the state of South Africa’s energy transition. 

Shamini Harrington, the Senior Executive of the Environment, Health, ER and Legacies of the Mineral Council of South Africa expressed three key fundamentals that South Africa needs to focus on regarding the energy transition.

 “The three biggest things that we’d have to focus on is we’ve got to rapidly expand growth, two we’ve got to launch the market, the market is critical to addressing a lot of cross subsidisation risk transfer and the current issues spoken about; that creates price discovery and efficiency discovery and three we have to address the public sector capacity particularly the department which is brand new and the regulator both of these are definitely needed, must be fit for purpose and currently they are not” 

Nikki Fisher, the Head of Sustainability for Thungela, made mention that focusing the transition in a way that best serves the public is the core goal in regards to South Africa’s energy transition and finding ways to make the economies more inclusive in this regard.

 “I think first and foremost we need to put the coal dependent communities at the centre of the transition. It’s gonna take a lot of planning, a lot of investment in implementation, in trying to diversify the economies of those regions. That’s where all of the pieces come together, the transition is one aspect but then the transition of the people is another.” said Fisher in her address 

Joanne Yawitch, Head of the Just Energy Transition Project Management Unit, spoke on the critical impact that load shedding has had on the economy and in terms of stabilizing energy security and has made mention of the progress the Just Energy Project has made.

 “We’ve done a lot in the space of electricity regarding renewables deployment, but if we look at the future that is definitely changing, we are kind of at a crossroads and we can either choose the high road or the low road or we can completely go backwards.” 

“We need to be aware that with the load shedding, what became of COVID, industry has never been able to get back to the point that they need to be at and you need a foundation business in order to transition.” added Joanne Yawitch.