Rolling blackouts and the necessity of a just energy transition — the facts and the fiction

When I scroll down the Twitter timeline or flip through newspapers, I sometimes encounter two strange lines of thought. One, the West has supposedly tricked South Africa into an energy transition. Two, Germany is allegedly stealing coal from Mzansi. Both are really strange. And both are wrong.

The energy mix, i.e. which sources to use to produce electricity, is the sovereign choice of any country. Even inside the European Union, different member states made different choices. France, for instance, still prioritises nuclear energy, whereas Germany is about to close down its last nuclear power plants.

South Africa, too, had to make its own sovereign choice. And it chose to commit to ambitious climate goals. To reduce its carbon emissions by embarking on a transition towards a more modern and greener energy production. And to do so in a socially just way, leaving nobody behind. It is called JET — Just Energy Transition.

To achieve this goal and to complement its national efforts, South Africa entered into a cooperation agreement with international partners, among them Germany. It seemed logical to call it JET-P — Just Energy Transition Partnership.

Yes, we are ready to support the just energy transition. And we have already started doing so by providing significant grants and a promotional loan to the South African Treasury of €300-million, over R5.6-billion. France did the same. Other partners like the EU, the UK, the US, and in fact many more, are committing to similar steps of cooperation.

One important point to note is that this is a South African choice. Nobody pushes South Africa to exit coal, and even less, to do so immediately.

In Germany, we have been working on an energy transition for more than 20 years. Here, according to the plans of the SA government, it may take up until 2050. For a successful energy transition, we are in it for the long haul.

Transforming the energy supply, even the whole economy of a country into a climate-friendly, sustainable and green system is a task of a generation. It simply cannot be done overnight. Instead, it is a process that takes time and that has to be well planned and executed, taking into account all the opportunities, but also all the challenges that arise with it.

A successful energy transition, however, may also help to solve the ongoing energy crisis. The current level of rolling blackouts is a major burden for the people and the economy of this country.

And if we believe the experts, there is hardly a way to overcome the energy crisis in South Africa by relying solely on coal. At the moment, there is simply not enough energy available. Many coal power plants are said to be ageing and suffering from a lack of maintenance over many years. Quite a number will reach the end of their life cycles very soon. Replacing them is virtually impossible, because it would take too long and would be far too expensive.