South Africa, and Africa as a whole, had to make use of diversified energy resources, to enhance energy security. This was one of the points highlighted by South African Electricity and Energy Minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa in his keynote address, at the Africa Energy Indaba at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, on Tuesday.

In the case of South Africa, he affirmed that the country’s energy policy was one of “additionality” (adding new energy sources) not “subtraction” (closing down existing energy resources). South Africa (and Africa) was a fossil fuel producer and it would be the “height of folly” to phase this out. “We’re not going to decimate coal.”

Referring to Africa, he noted that the continent’s demand for oil was likely to increase by 100% by 2050. Fossil fuels would supply from 64% to 77% of Africa’s primary energy demand by 2030.

“Gas is not a transitional energy source, I want to argue. It is a destination,” he said. The exploitation of all of the continent’s known natural gas would increase Africa’s share of cumulative global emissions to only 3.5%.

He did give the assurance that South Africa would not abrogate its responsibility to generate electricity cleanly. The country had an obligation to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions and to widen its industrial base. But every country had to be allowed to find its own path through the energy transition.

He reaffirmed South Africa’s commitment to nuclear energy, noting that nuclear was now internationally accepted as one of the clean forms of energy. He also pointed out that more nuclear reactors were currently being built in Africa (in Egypt, although he did not name the country), and that small modular nuclear reactors were being planned in Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria.

Renewable energy, particularly solar energy, allowed polycentric distribution, or distributed generation, although it suffered from the problem of intermittency. Already, solar was the cheapest source of new electricity in many parts of Africa.

Indeed, the continent had huge solar resources. Africa had 60% of the world’s best solar resources, but currently had only 1% of global installed solar PV capacity.

Investment was needed to develop the continent’s energy infrastructure. That needed a lot of private-sector involvement, because the public sector didn’t have the resources. But the high cost of capital for private-sector investments in African energy projects was a major barrier. He called for an end to obsolete risk models regarding investments in African projects and urged for adoption of new approaches to financing such projects. These included seeking new sources for funding; adopting blended financing models; and allowing national development banks to mobilise international as well as national funding sources.

Ramokgopa also stressed the importance of inter-African cooperation in developing the continent’s energy infrastructure. He assured that he was “not naïve” about the difficulties this would entail. “There is a need for us to agree on strategic actions for energy, on the continent,” he affirmed. Through regional cooperation, the African Union’s objective of universal energy access by 2063 could be achieved.