Energy Dialogue: Energy Poverty

Building on the series of energy dialogues that took place from June to November 2022, the Presidential Climate Commission (PCC) is convening a series of public discussions on South Africa’s energy mix and electricity access as we continue to plan for mitigation pathways under a constrained carbon economy. The PCC has identified and prioritised the dialogues based on requests from the initial energy dialogue series and the integrated consultations that took place during the first quarter of this year. These dialogues will form the basis of the PCCs work on the broader energy agenda and planning as we seek to understand the sectorial mitigation pathways under a low carbon economy.

To kick start these discussions, we will host a dialogue on Energy Poverty, “lack of access to sustainable modern energy sources and products” as described by the World Economic Forum. This dialogue aims to unpack the relationship of energy and development and its implications for communities and government, in particular local government. Electricity revenue is the single biggest category for municipal revenue and the municipality needs a funded budget and efficient roll out structure for free basic electricity that can support household socio-economic growth.

It is equally important to consider energy access, especially reliable, clean, and safe energy access required for sustainable socio-economic development. Whilst South Africa has a high electrification rate, there are still urban and rural households that are not connected to the national electricity grid. Additionally, electricity affordability and current energy insecurity continue to exacerbate the marginalisation of households with low-income earnings and SMMEs as they are unable to afford electricity to ensure a sustainable well-being.

Access to safe and reliable energy has multiple direct and indirect benefits for households and business such as: reduced demand for unsafe fuel that results in indoor pollution, reduced risk of fire from unsafe energy sources and improved socio-economic well-being (Ledger and Rampedi, 2022). The aim of this dialogue to unpack debate around energy poverty, access and affordability whilst covering any policy changes that should be addressed to alleviate energy poverty as we increase the quantity of variable renewable forms of electricity generation as a country. The dialogue will address the following questions:

• What is the role of the state, in particular local government in ensuring energy access.
• What are the barriers to implementation and how can these be overcome.
• Electricity security can be a mechanism to fix inequality, how can we design systems that grow capacity of local government and communities.
• How can cost reflective tariffs contribute towards energy security.