MyPE

Community Business Directory, Event Listings, News and Views from Gqeberha, Nelson Mandela Bay

WIIIFM – Is the Way To Get Government Behind Renewable Energy and EVs

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  • We should be promoting Electrifying Public Transport FIRST before selling private EV’s in South Africa. That could make the transport burden on workers lower. #PeoplesPower
  • What Is In It For Me (WIIIFM) is the question needed to be answered when promoting renewable energy – not forgetting that government will mostly base their decisions on that acronym.

Last week in Gqeberha I had opportunity to attend two very different events:

  1. SORE: Socially Owned Renewable Energy conference
  2. Exporters AGM

The two couldn’t be more diametrically opposed – one being socialist and the other capitalist in approach.

BUT, they both share common ground in that the hot topic of conversation at both was the South African governments lack of embracing the shift to renewable energy which could put South Africa much further behind in the race to feed and house our citizens.

The contrast between the two was in the approach to electrifying our transport:

  1. SORE advocated the electrification of public transport
  2. Exporters spoke to the lack of government incentive and dropped numbers on how many individual units were required to make the sale of EVs viable per manufacturer.

Frankly – private business could take SORE’s proposal and use that to ignite a passion in government to support this worldwide shift. Any focus on public transport by definition focusses on the workforce and that, by most people’s definition focusses on the very people who vote our present government into power year after year. Look at the focus on Public Transport as a big fat advert for the ANC – ONLY IF they can insure that public transport prices actually decrease, though.

The Eastern Cape Coega Development is ideally poised to host a battery gigafactory it being at the intersection of many raw materials being exported, along with lots of land and skills available just down the road at Nelson Mandela University’s uYilo facility.

The push for a slice of the renewable energy pie is huge from all sectors when you consider:

  1. Of the R1.5 Trillion (Just Energy Transition) JET plan budget only R1.6 Billion has been allocated specifically to socially owned renewable energy. Contrast that to the estimated R200-R500 Billion Karpowership proposal!
  2. Municipalities get 30% of their revenue from electricity sales. So what happens when we all go renewable OR will only the rich benefit?
  3. There is 14 337 Megawatts of private sector projects waiting in the wings to be given access to the grid.
  4. At present there are 40 SA Municipalities accepting Feed in Tariff (Grid Tie) and the average price that they ‘pay’ is 85 cents per kWh.
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Alan Straton

Chief Cook, Bottle Washer and Broom Mechanic at MyPE
Passionate about Port Elizabeth and definitely NOT packing for Perth. Alan's ethos is epitomised in the words of Nelson Mandela; "I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the idea of a democratic and free society. If need be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die." See more articles by Alan.