Energy experts say that coal will continue to be the country’s primary source of energy for the foreseeable future. This was revealed in the African Energy Chamber (AEC)’s recently released state of the South African Energy Special Report.
The report also provides possible solutions as to how South Africa can address the ongoing power crisis. It suggests that solar and wind will continue to contribute to the majority of capacity in 2023 and beyond.
AEC Executive Chairman, NJ Ayuk says, “Solar will increase, coal is going to see a decline – but coal is going to continue to be the dominant part of the South African energy system. We have seen right now when we look at huge data on the decrease in consumption of coal in South Africa- because we want to do a transition – and we want to decommission old plants- we’ve seen how we’ve ended up with 10 hours of load shedding per day. Gas was actually something that we realized in our report that it’s going to be that transition fuel.”
The Climate Justice Coalition has been calling on government to scrap plans to build new coal-fired power plants:
