Strong partnership private-public crucial in resolving SA’s energy crisis: Winde

Western Cape Premier Alan Winde says investment in energy generation is imperative to economic growth and job creation. He was hosting members of the business community in Cape Town to discuss ways in which load shedding can be brought to an end.

Winde says strong partnerships between the private and public sectors are crucial in resolving South Africa’s energy crisis.

The energy challenges facing the country need a collaborative effort. Winde says now is the time to invest in energy generation to build energy resilience. The gathering follows a provincial energy summit held in recent weeks where various proposals, included bringing more Independent Power Producers online.

Winde says, “The energy summit – there were some businesses involved. But it was mainly the government trying to get where… we are focussing on. Are we focussing on the right thing, are we getting the right traction, what’s new what haven’t we been looking at, gas on the one side, solar embedded generation on the other side, all the way to green hydrogen, that was that energy summit that worked, you can now see in the presentations that were made and now we are meeting with business broadly on energy again, over the next few years we must make sure that there’s a just transition, to a system that’s got energy resilience and in actual fact load shedding becomes a thing of the past.”

Eskom says it’s investing in reskilling the utility’s employees as the transition from coal is inevitable. It says there are opportunities for business, amid the crisis.

“If we can unlock R1.2-trillion in investment, you can imagine the number of jobs created, you can imagine the number of jobs saved by providing energy security, you can imagine the opportunities created for decarbonised greener industry but if we all sit around and do nothing, the only effect that I can say with certainty is that there are darker days ahead. That’s the stark choice that we face but that’s also the upside of opportunities that we have got,” says Eskom CEO André De Ruyter.

The provincial government says it will assist the power utility in any way it can and has called on businesses to invest in innovative energy generation solutions.