By Lesedi Sibiya-Diplomatic Insider

South Africa finds itself in a position where there is more demand than supply particularly when it comes to the country’s energy usage. At the Coal and Energy Transition Day meeting yesterday in Houghton, many industry leaders discussed the various causes for why the country has little supply to demand.

According to Silas Zimu, Special Advisor to the Ministry of Electricity and Energy, one of the contributing factors to low supply of energy dates back to the late 1990s when South Africa had begun adjusting to democracy. Before democracy the minority population had more access to electricity that the vast majority, so when the transition into democracy occurred, the influx and demand in energy usage had vastly increased and South Africa has been on a mission to ensure that with the rapid growth in population, certain contingencies need to be put in place in order to combat this issue.

“The minority, which was running the country, managed to build about 48000 MW of power to meet the demand. And there are two issues here. One is that for the last 30 years with the current government, the country has neglected to add to this power, which actually decreased to about 30,000 MW. Two is that, while this has happened, the population has been growing with more people being connected to the grid. Most of them are not in a position to pay for the electricity, but it’s in the constitution that they should get access.” said Mr Zimu in his address yesterday.

At the high-level meeting one of the key factors discussed were the challenges and opportunities for junior coal miners, the discussion was led by Bontle Aphane, CEO at Arnot Opco, she had asked the panelists about the efficiency and the quantity of work supplies for junior miners to which Mr Shammy Luvhengo, CEO of Ndalamo resources expressed that they would have to come up with “innovative” ways in fulfilling their agreements with suppliers.

 “On the structural side we actually need to be innovative so that we can demonstrate that we will be able to supply, because you’re not going to get into an agreement for five years, but you are only able to supply for a year, so we need to demonstrate our agility and if we will be innovative enough to fulfill our agreement, but of course cash flow does come into play, but how best can we be innovative, so much so that for the next five years or longer, we’ll be able to fulfill our agreement.”

Allastair Muller, who serves as Partner at Accenture PLC,  led the discussion centered around developments in renewable energy and its contribution to the country’s energy mix. There was heavy emphasis made about the fact that renewable energy alone will not be enough to sustain the country’s growing energy demand, and that if coal based energy is used in tandem with renewable energy it will create a balanced energy mix for years to come.