Person of the Year: Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa impresses by being able to keep lights on

 



When Minister of Electricity and Energy Kgosientsho Ramokgopa assumed office, South Africa was grappling with its worst-ever electricity crisis, with long bouts of load shedding a persistent feature of daily life. In the time since, the country has enjoyed its longest stretch of uninterrupted electricity supply in many years.

For this reason, Daily Maverick’s readers have voted for Ramokgopa as their Person of the Year 2024.

It is important to recognise that Ramokgopa’s leadership coincided with significant operational improvements at Eskom and that these form part of a broader strategy initiated under the Energy Action Plan introduced by President Cyril Ramaphosa.

At the time of Ramokgopa’s appointment, Eskom’s energy availability factor (EAF) was about 57%. International best practice is to have an EAF of 80%, which can be understood as having 80% of the generation capacity available at any one time.

Though the cessation of rolling blackouts cannot be attributed exclusively to him, Eskom’s EAF has improved significantly under Ramokgopa’s leadership, reaching 70.78% by May – a level not seen since August 2021.

Another reason he has been voted in was his clear emphasis on transparency and civic accountability. Through regular media briefings and public forums, Ramokgopa has demystified the complexities of South Africa’s energy challenges and the government’s responses to them, inviting citizens to be part of the solution. This accessibility, combined with a clear and actionable vision, has fostered a modicum of trust in the nation’s energy discourse, which has been absent for years.

He has been humble and cogent in recognising the besmirched history of nuclear energy procurement in the country as well as the broad scepticism about large-scale procurement more generally.

In August, he made headlines by pausing plans for the procurement of new nuclear capacity, citing the need for a transparent and legally airtight process. “The last thing we want is to do a major build programme on the back of suspicion that the department and government is hiding something from the public,” he said at the time.

Ramokgopa’s work extends beyond crisis management, and he has on numerous occasions laid out a vision of a South African energy future that is both sustainable and equitable.

On separate occasions this year, he has advocated an “aggressive” roll-out of renewable energy projects, arguing that it is both financially and environmentally sound and also reflects an accurate appraisal of Africa’s immense renewable energy potential.

In July, he said: “Let’s show the country and the rest of the world that we can do it. We are going to be the leaders on this continent in relation to renewable energy. And it’s important I make that point.”

In November, Ramokgopa announced that the updated Integrated Resource Plan 2024 – South Africa’s energy blueprint – was so altered from the one released months earlier by his predecessor that it was basically a new document altogether. Accordingly, the minister signalled a bold new direction: wind, solar and other low-emission  technologies would increasingly gobble up a larger share of South Africa’s aggregate energy mix as the country lowers its carbon intensity and curbs its emissions.

“Going into the future, we’re expecting an exponential increase of their [solar and wind energy] share in the aggregate mix,” he said at the time. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.