‘Everything that South Africa is planning for the energy sector has to be targeted at proactive decarbonisation by 2050,’ explains James Reeler, WWF’s Senior Manager for Climate Action who is managing the IEP project. ‘If we persist with high carbon emissions, the country will be going against the global requirement to mitigate against life-threatening global warming and will face global trade sanctions.’

To keep global warming to no more than 1.5°C – as called for in the Paris Climate Agreement to which South Africa is a signatory – emissions need to be reduced by 45% by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050.

The illustrative IEP is being done in partnership with a technical research team – the Energy System Research Group from the University of Cape Town (UCT) – and a steering committee, including a number of labour, academia, non-governmental, industry and government organisations.

‘South African trade unions are among them as we prioritise the issue of equity, job security, job creation, localisation and inclusion, which includes the required job transition from carbon-intensive energy sectors such as coal and gas to other energy sources,’ says Reeler.

Over 40 stakeholders participated in the inception workshop in 2023, including the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA), the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), the UCT Energy System Research Group, the Presidential Climate Commission (PCC), Sasol, the Green Connection (a sustainable development and social and environmental justice organisation) and the German Development Agency (GIZ).

‘The project team is working together to create a world-class IEP and report within a few months that will be widely available for comment,’ says Poovi Pillay, Executive Head of Corporate Social Investment (CSI) at Nedbank. ‘It’s essential for South Africa to have this illustrative IEP, and it will be accompanied by a public communication campaign to explain the need for the IEP and the transition to a low- carbon economy.’

In terms of the National Energy Act, 34 of 2008 (NEA) all energy policies in South Africa must be guided by a national IEP that considers a long-term trajectory for the country. Plans such as the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) – the draft roadmap for the electricity sector that was gazetted on 4 January 2024 – are currently being developed in a siloed manner, which means that they do not consider potential developments and impacts of other energy sectors, leading to poor policy alignment.

‘We asked government why they developed the IRP before the IEP and the only answer received is that the country had no capacity to perform technical functions needed to complete the IEP,’ says Reeler, adding, ‘possibly government also delayed the IEP process because of energy sector-related problems that needed immediate attention such as improving energy access since 1994, corruption, mismanagement, and load-shedding.’

In January 2023 the Green Connection and the South African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute (SAFCEI) pursued a court case against the President and the Minister of the DMRE, calling on them to bring section 6 of NEA into operation. Section 6 requires of the Minister of the Department of Energy (now the Department of Electricity and Energy) to develop and publish the IEP and review it on an annual basis.

The outcome was that President Ramaphosa wrote a letter saying that the relevant section of the Energy Act would commence on 1 April 2024. To date, the Integrated Energy Plan has still not been developed.

‘In May this year, we presented what we are doing to the Director General of the DMRE who is tasked with developing integrated minerals and energy policies to promote transformation, investment and sustainable development in the mining and energy sectors,’ says Reeler. ‘Our aim is to collaborate and offer our input because an IEP is a very complex task that requires modelling the whole energy sector over a 20-year horizon. The DMRE was concerned that developing an IEP model with a net-zero trajectory is predetermining the outcome. Our response is that we are adhering to the IEP’s requirements as specified in legislation – the net-zero constraint must be considered to enable proper assessment of the potential trade- offs and benefits implicit in achieving this target, which is recommended by the Presidential Climate Commission and South Africa’s international commitments.’

Reeler adds: ‘WWF and many players in both civil society and business consider that an energy transition that aligns with the Paris Agreement and the timelines laid out by the IPCC is a reasonable and necessary constraint for modelling. The economic, health and social impacts of failure to adhere to this target cannot be ignored’. He adds the positive outcome from that meeting is that DMRE agreed to have more engagements about the IEP, and the project team is hoping to meet again in August.

Reeler explains that the first step towards developing an IEP is to agree on an inclusive vision with stakeholders – a vision that is forward-looking in saving and creating more jobs. ‘Currently, we are developing the methodology, scenarios and assumptions across all subsectors in demand and supply,’ says Reeler. ‘The process includes policy analysis to identify policy levers, controllables and risks. Together with the stakeholders, we will then workshop the scenarios in the greatest detail to make them realistic.’

Questions that need answering include, for example, would transport be electrified by 2050 instead of depending on oil and gas; what energy services will South Africa need to meet its increased energy demand going forward; what will be the balance between coal, renewables and nuclear? ‘We interrogate all energy modalities, including looking at how long the coal sector should contribute, whether renewables can service large scale industry, and if nuclear is necessary in the energy mix,’ Reeler explains.

He adds that some industries, such as cement and steel, are more difficult to decarbonise in the short-term because of process emissions and the current technologies. To transform steel, additional constant electricity supply linked to renewables and large scale batteries would be required, which are currently very limited on the grid. However, battery storage is rapidly being developed in the East Asian countries and the United States for long-term duration of up to 16 hours, which will entirely change the need for coal-fired power in even heavy base load industries. ‘This could happen overnight,’ he says. ‘Consider that as recently as 10 years ago we did not foresee the huge leap in renewable energy and the dramatic price drop in this sector we have seen over the years.’

Reeler says the dogged protection of coal by many stakeholders does not protect South Africa. ‘It is a carbon-intensive process that must be addressed going forward, because it undermines our competitiveness, has huge human health impacts, and exacerbates climate change impacts. Employment in the coal industry is already in decline, but a transition to a renewables-powered economy will capitalise on the fact that this industry has more than twice the employment rate per kWh of fossil fuels. With regard to the issue of renewables feeding into the national grid, he explains the grid was developed for electricity output and not input. But the Australians have shown us how to overcome this and convert the grid into a bi-directional electricity system. This type of system lets electricity to flow in both directions – from the power plant to homes and businesses and back to the grid.

Reeler adds that the commercial sector and truck, car and train transport sector can readily be transformed by renewables. And even the challenging shipping sector is making moves to decarbonise through using green hydrogen-based fuels. As to whether nuclear should be part of the IEP, Reeler says that while some stakeholders believe nuclear is one of the cleanest sources of energy, given that renewable energy is 10 times cheaper than nuclear to develop and faster to deploy, new nuclear makes little economic or strategic sense. There is also the danger aspect of nuclear to consider – both short-term accident risk and long-term disposal of waste materials. But, as long as Koeberg is still operating, nuclear will be included in the baseline model.

‘In a few months we will complete the methodology and run the model,’ says Reeler. ‘We will then write the whole IEP report and present it later this year or early next year, together with a policy paper that examines the alignment of the IEP with key policies, highlights gaps and identifies the pathways we need to pursue by when, such as the percentage of renewables we need in place by 2030 to reduce carbon emissions by a specific percentage towards 2050.’