Fail to plan, plan to fail
It's no secret that South Africa has abundant potential to generate renewable energy. If you don't believe me, just go outside on one of these unseasonably warm late summer days we've been having and feel the breeze on your face. What we have lacked until recently, however, is a co-ordinated effort to exploit this potential – and to establish a sound position for South Africa in the renewables value chain.
The Cabinet's recent approval of the South African Renewable Energy Masterplan thus represents an exciting step forward. Electricity and Energy Deputy Minister Samantha Graham-Maré says that, crucially, the plan is the result of collaboration between civil society, industry role players, labour, government, independent power producers and others, making it holistically aligned with the whole renewable energy ecosystem. One of the key things the plan addresses is developing the skills South Africa – and indeed most countries worldwide – need to drive our energy transition. From engineers and data scientists to environmental impact assessors and welders, there are thousands of jobs that can be created should the various stakeholders across that ecosystem work together.
This is just one of the issues we address in this revamped, and thus inaugural, issue of Renewable Energy Solutions . We also check out the Global African Hydrogen Summit taking place in Windhoek later this year, the potential for biogas development in the country, how we can make those proliferating data centres of ours a bit more sustainable, what the evolution of the battery industry means for a country stocked with crucial minerals, how private trading is transforming the energy market, and just how we're going to fund the Just Energy Partnership with Donald Trump having withdrawn funding. If anything illustrates how you can't plan for everything, it's that last point. Nevertheless, it still helps to have a plan.
Anthony Sharpe, Editor
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Politicians fight over a shrinking economy and hone in on race politics and the history of the past; they get distracted. They over-explain themselves time and time again without offering solutions. The issue in South Africa is silently growing under the noise of political infighting and politicians competing for airtime. South Africa's problem lies in the fact that liberation might have been announced but the inequality has gone unaddressed. Remember Morrison's words: 'The very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being.' Suddenly, race in South Africa seems more prevalent than ever. What work is being done? Khumo Kumalo is the founder of the website Misunderstood, which unpacks social, identity and economic issues in South Africa, and a student at Morehouse College, studying political science. He is the host of the Born Free podcast. He is also a Mail & Guardian 200 Young
