Jacob Zuma, President of South Africa, explains how the country is responding to the serious power constraints that have haunted South Africa over the last few years, and outlines the strategy for achieving future energy security.
The debilitating energy challenges that South Africa has been experiencing since 2008 until some few months back are rapidly becoming a thing of the past. These challenges arose mainly from rapid economic growth and electricity consumption that outpaced the country’s power generation capacity. Over these years, government has made decisive interventions in the energy sector, expanding the country’s generation capacity and diversifying energy sources, which included the involvement of independent energy providers (IPPs) as well as exploration of green energy sources, and this has improved the country’s energy situation enormously.
In addressing the energy challenges in December 2014, the Economic Sectors, Employment and Infrastructure Development Ministers’ Cluster, and subsequently the Cabinet, adopted a Five Point Plan advancing immediate and short-term interventions (over the next three years) to limit ‘load shedding’ (managed reduction of load to avoid a total blackout) and enhance the electricity generation utility Eskom’s strategic developmental role…
*Statistics within article correct at original publication date of CHOGM 2015 Report.
Jacob Zuma
President of South Africa
