Ramokgopa banks on renewables for cheaper electricity

As it is becoming increasingly common to find households in the dark because their inhabitants cannot afford electricity, minister of electricity & energy Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has promised South Africans the government will be exploring renewable energy in a bid to supply the country’s citizens with cheaper power.

Over the years, the month of July has been characterised by residents’ frustration in metropolitan areas as municipalities implement tariff increases. Johannesburg’s residents were recently at loggerheads with the city council after it imposed a R200 monthly surcharge on prepaid electricity. This sparked an outcry, as residents struggled with the double-whammy in increase.

Ramokgopa, speaking during the opening of parliament debate on Friday, said the government was forging ahead with plans to explore renewable energy, to ensure citizens got electricity at cheaper prices.

“We are going to protect the poor from the extent [to which their] wages and disposable income [have been] eroded by electricity tariff increases. We are going to super-exploit our renewable endowments in the form of the sun and wind speeds found in the Cape provinces [Western Cape and Eastern Cape]. In this way, we [will be] able to bring greener, faster, cheaper, more affordable [electricity to the people],” he said.

Ramokgopa said a cheaper and more stable power supply would ensure growth in business operations and South Africa’s economy. He has been talking big about renewables after having been announced minister of energy & electricity last month. 

In a media briefing earlier this month, he said, “I am going to be ultra-aggressive on the renewable-energy side. I think we have taken a bit longer than necessary. I am a firm believer that it is the mix [of coal and renewables] that matters.”

Ramokgopa told MPs that for the past four months Eskom employees had been working hard to prolong the suspension of load-shedding. While Eskom had not implemented load-shedding for more than three months, the utility had sporadically imposed load-reduction in different parts of the country.

“The turnaround we are seeing at Eskom is not a miracle — it is a calculated engineering effort in response to an existing problem on the economic front by [the] competent men and women of Eskom,” he said.