The Department of Energy (DoE) declared itself satisfied with the results by Statistician-General of South Africa on electrification for the year ended June 2015.The headline stat was that the “percentage of South African households that were connected to electricity increased from 77.1% in 2002 to 85.5% in 2015”.The DoE was encouraged that this was helping to decrease a “health risk by eliminating life-threatening energy carriers such as paraffin and firewood”.It quoted these stats:- The percentage of households that used electricity for cooking increased from 58% in 2002 to 78.1% in June 2015;- The percentage of households that used paraffin declined from 16.2% in 2002 to 5.4% in 2015;- The percentage of households that used firewood decreased from 19.3% to 9.3%; and- The percentage of households that used gas increased from 2.2% in 2002 to 3.5% in 2015.“These data is extremely positive news for the country in terms of the prime focus of the increased access to electricity to ensure a positive socio-economic outcome by ensuring more opportunities in the economic sectors‚” the DoE said.“While 85.5 % of households have access to electricity‚ the DoE remains committed in ensuring that universal access to electricity is achieved within the next 10-12 years.”The DoE said it “will engage the Department of Human Settlements to come up with a plan on how to expedite the electrification of informal settlement growth in the Western Cape and Gauteng”.This was as the “percentage of households with access to electricity increased by less than two percent in the Western Cape over this time‚ while the percentage of households with access to electricity actually declined by 3.9 percent between 2002 and 2015 in Gauteng”.The department‚ however‚ noted that the small increase the “Western Cape is due to the high baseline of households electrified”‚ while Gauteng’s decline “is linked to the high level of migration to the Province and the resultant creation of informal dwellings”. - TMG Digital..