Corporate SA has been at the forefront of the opportunities presented by renewable energy.
In his State of the Nation Address to Parliament in February 2023, President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a national 'state of disaster over SA’s energy crisis. ”The crisis has progressively evolved to affect every part of society, ” he said. ”We must act to lessen the impact of the crisis on farmers, on small businesses, on our water infrastructure and our transport network ”.
That, coming at a time of unprecedented load shedding, was clear to all South Africans. In August Ramaphosa claimed, perhaps optimistically that ’we are certain that by 2024, the energy crisis will be over’. Still, the scale of the crisis overshadowed any optimism around its solution..
Industry is especially eager to solve the energy crisis. In the mining sector, several companies have been investing in their on-site power plants - partly out of a desire for environmental sustainability, but mostly out of necessity. Year-on-year power cost increases are far above inflation, and load shedding often leads to high-power consumers (such as mines) being asked to reduce their power demands through load curtailment. This results in production losses or production delays.
