South Africa has taken another step close to achieving sustainable energy production with the gazetting of a draft policy on sustainable hydropower generation.

The gazetting of the revised draft of the Sustainable Hydropower Policy (2015) by the Minister of Water and Sanitation follows a targeted consultation workshop held on the on 9 September 2015.

Here Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) officials engaged with affected stakeholders and experts including professionals from the private energy industry, civil society, and academia. Subsequently bilateral meetings were held with the Department of Energy at different levels.

The DWS has encouraged water-users including municipalities, industry, experts in the energy industry – particularly looking at hydropower generation – and other sectors to make submissions towards the draft Sustainable Hydropower Policy (2015).

The overall objective of the draft policy on Sustainable Hydropower Generation is to provide a policy position for the Department of Water and Sanitation on the establishment and development of hydropower using existing DWS infrastructure as well as within the water resources of South Africa.

This forms part of long-term interventions by the department to support sustainable power supply in South Africa.

Another objective is to enable hydropower exploitation ranging from very small-scale run-of-river projects to the large-scale retrofitted dams.

In addition the overall objective, the policy encourages energy efficiency initiatives in the water and sanitation sector which include but are not limited to conduit hydropower opportunity in development within water and sanitation services infrastructures and water distribution networks.