The Department of Energy (DoE) has plans to establish a Ministerial Advisory Council on Energy to serve as a sounding board for the challenges confronting the energy sector.
“I have decided that over and above the Department of Energy expertise, as a ministry, we are going to need input from other experts in the energy sector,” said Minister of Energy Tina Joemat-Pettersson at the New Age/SABC breakfast. “I will be inviting members of the public to recommend people that can serve on the soon to be established Ministerial Advisory Council on Energy.” The council will not be a statutory body and will not make decisions. The panel will include academics, members of civil society, the labour movement and engineering expertise. Pettersson said she will be looking for experience and innovation. “We want to crowd in solutions by tapping into some of the ideas that remain unheard. Overall, central to this term of government will be enhanced engagement and coordination of all the stakeholders in the energy space. South Africa, this is our collective challenge and we cannot fail.” Energy roadmap “On energy our marching orders are very clear,” Pettersson said, referring to President Jacob Zuma’s most recent State of the Nation Address. “We aspire to achieve and energy mix which has greatly reduced carbon intensity. We only have 15 years to get there and my approach is that we should attain our energy security aspirations much sooner than that.” Pettersson has directed the Department of Energy to accelerate the pace on the Independent Power Producer programme and will make further announcements in this regard during July. The Ministries of Public Enterprises and Energy met with Eskom last week and this week the Departments of Energy, Public Enterprises and National Treasury will meet to propose a roadmap that will assist in strengthening the position of Eskom. Key to the interventions will be to ensure that the construction of new plants is kept on track. Nuclear energy“The debate on nuclear energy has gone on for a long time and perhaps this was necessary. The time has however now come for some decisive actions to be taken in this regard,” stated Pettersson. In the next few weeks, the minister will outline a comprehensive roadmap that will lead to a firm decision on the nuclear build programme. Key in this roadmap is ensuring that the 29 and 30 year old units at Koeberg Nuclear Power Station continue producing power for another three decades. This will involve some life extending refurbishments at the power plant.
Biofuel Pettersson believes that an area that has to begin to yield tangible progress is the biofuels sector. “Time for certainty on the regulatory framework on pricing has come and I can assure stakeholders that I intend to engage with the obstacles to progress on this matter, and ensure that they are removed. Biofuels has a potential to contribute to economic development, particularly on job creation and we therefore should not be tolerant about the delays.” Service delivery “On electrification, we cannot achieve service delivery without coordination with municipalities and provinces. I will work very closely with the provincial executives and municipalities. This will include closer monitoring of the use of the electrification funds and investments in the distribution infrastructure,” Pettersson assured. She pointed out that energy security cannot be achieved without regional integration. To this end, the DoE will continue to work very closely with its Southern African Democratic Community counterparts to fast track all energy generation and transmission programmes in the sub region.
