South Africa’s pursuit of energy security and the correct energy mix must be hinged on science-based policy, and government must take on a leading role, Electricity and Energy Minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said in a keynote address, on February 24, at the first day of the South African National Energy Development Institute’s (Sanedi’s) third yearly conference, being held this week in Ekurhuleni.

He pointed out that with energy and the energy complex being the “defining" issues of our time, stakeholders like Sanedi would be pivotal in helping resolve the questions surrounding this and guiding the country’s policies.

Ramokgopa emphasised that policy must be based on scientific evidence, calling for this to have the greatest weight in decision-making, and for emotion to be removed from policymaking.

He stressed the importance of critical engagement with the scientific community, to help solve the complexities going forward. Sanedi was positioned to play a key role, as a “body that can galvanise important minds in the country”.

Ramokgopa highlighted the need for the State to be the principal actor and to avoid delegating this responsibility to non-State actors. Rather, it must ensure that it encouraged them to assist, he asserted.

Ramokgopa also underlined the importance of policy that was long-term and insulated from political cycles.

Sanedi CEO Dr Titus Mathe echoed the Minister’s call for scientific collaboration and contribution, highlighting that, in this vein, the “next grand challenge” for Sanedi, along with the Department of Electricity and Energy (DEE) and the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation, was the establishment of an Energy Planning, Modelling and Data Management Centre of Excellence. This would be hosted by Sanedi, along with other partners.

“We would like to give policymakers better access to research models, and tools to improve key decisions related to planning and development. We also want to be in a position to support policy development and optimisation, based on science, evidence, analysis, and credible data and insights. That’s what the centre is going to be achieving,” he acclaimed.

Mathe told Engineering News that the centre was conceptualised following the challenges faced in gleaning access to credible data during the formation of the latest Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), which caused considerations such as energy efficiency and demand side management to be excluded.

Therefore, this would be one of the areas that the centre would be tasked with, gathering its own data as well as tapping into other public and private sources that already had data sets for this. “We will all collaborate, but the State must be at the centre, as the Minister said,” he averred.

Mathe pointed out that the centre would ensure that when the next IRP revision was undertaken, the challenges experienced previously would be negated.

Moreover, other plans were also being concluded and developed, such as the Integrated Energy Plan, the Gas Master Plan and the Liquid Fuels Master Plan, as was support for the South African Renewable Energy Masterplan, all of which required credible information, he explained.

Mathe also warned of a lack of skilled capacity in the country, with many individuals having sought opportunities abroad. The centre aimed to provide a coordinated, centralised platform for these experts to collaborate – both from inside and outside the country – to rebuild the country’s capacity to undertake energy planning and modelling, he highlighted.

Sanedi applied energy GM Professor Prathaban Moodley added that the tools and skills required to launch the centre were “very unique”, with each subset of the energy sector requiring its own bespoke tools.

“We’ve started off with the power sector, given the work that we've done in the IRP, which actually requires energy planning and modelling tools. . .”

He warned, too, that skills were very scarce in South Africa, and were also limited from a global perspective, which underscored the importance of finding a platform for the critical skills required for energy planning studies.

“I think most critically, the primary fuel switches over the next coming period, next decade or two, is going to have significant bearing on energy planning studies . . . It’s fortunate that we are going to be launching the centre . . . I think it’s critical for the just energy transition and to inform national policy based on scientific evidence and facts-driven information,” Moodley said.

Mathe informed that, importantly, the centre would also monitor the implementation of the IRP 2025, to ensure a proactive approach.

“The IRP 2019 was based on certain assumptions around the energy availability factor (EAF), and the EAF changed, and we were not proactive in reacting and self-correcting,” he pointed out.

The centre will also focus on the skills required to support the implementation of the IRP 2025.

This will entail collaborating with the Department of Higher Education and Training to corral skills that are already in the country, and develop those that still need to be developed, as well as assess curriculums and explore new technologies to deploy at local universities and technical and vocational education and training colleges.

Mathe also mentioned that the infrastructure tools to undertake energy modelling were expensive, and that this therefore necessitated collaboration. State-owned entity Eskom’s resources in this regard would be used, as well as other stakeholders such as the National Energy Regulator of South Africa and other DEE entities. The centre would also look to leverage expertise of international organisations, he said.

The centre is set to be operationalised by April 1, with a phased approach to be undertaken. Phase 1 will entail Sanedi and the DEE onboarding their existing resources and people, with potential for other entities to assist with setting up, on a secondment basis.

Energy and Electricity Deputy Minister Samantha Graham-Maré expressed the hope that tomorrow’s Budget Speech would allocate more funds for scientific research.

She also mentioned that, with the energy transition already under way in the country, focus should be on how to manage this, with outcomes that benefitted the economy and livelihoods.