Energy Efficiency needs to be promoted for a Sustainable Future

The efficient use of energy needs to become a permanent phenomenon by both business and individual consumers. Cheap electricity generated by burning our abundant dirty coal resources has resulted in South Africans becoming exceptionally wasteful.

Up until now there have been few incentives or penalties created in order to alter the way we consume electricity. Meanwhile, the true cost of generation has been passed on to the communities that reside in the vicinity of power stations – in the form of health ailments – or to the environment in general, in the form of human-induced climate change.

Government has responded to the current electricity crisis by threatening action against consumers that do not cut back their consumption in the near future. While demand-side interventions, including energy efficiency and conservation, are among the obvious requirements needed to alleviate the current state of affairs, it should not have taken a crisis situation to induce government into action. The problem with forcing energy efficiency on consumers under such conditions is that it creates resentment. Many South Africans may understandably be wondering why they have to take the hit when it was government that created this mess in the first place.

It’s time to diversify energy supply – give renewables a chance

An opinion piece by Gareth Morgan MP – DA Spokesperson on Environmental Affairs

A wise man once said: “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket”. The risk is that if something goes wrong, there will be no back up. Eskom has up to now invested practically all of South Africa’s electricity generating capacity in one basket. There may be reasons for that decision in the past, particularly the availability of cheap coal, but conditions are changing, and there are new opportunities on the horizon.

The solution to securing South Africa’s energy future lies in diversifying the country’s energy generation sources so that we stop depending almost entirely on coal. The key to diversification is renewable energy, which is quickly gaining momentum globally. Japan and Germany are the largest consumers of photovoltaic cells in the world despite their unfavourable geographic locations. In 2005, wind power generated 18.5% of electricity in Denmark. South Africa is still lagging behind these international trends and government has made very little progress in moving away from coal power.