The Global Electricity Initiative (GEI) was launched in Durban last week, bringing together 25 utilities from around the world to collaborate on climate change, while the international negotiations on climate change continued in parallel.

The utilities, including South Africa’s Eskom, represent some 10% of global electricity sales with over two-million employees and 296-million customers.

The GEI aims to highlight the contribution that progressive electricity utilities can make and show progress is being made on the ground.

A report revealed that about 30% of the participating utilities have saved about 453-million tons of carbon dioxide a year in the past five years, which is equivalent to about 19.6-million return flights from Beijing to Shanghai.

State-owned power utility Eskom CE Brian Dames said the approach taken by utilities was a bottom-up one, which showed that utilities, as well as other business and nongovernmental organisations, did not have to wait for a global framework to take action.

He added that the GEI facilitated practical technology sharing and set benchmarks that enabled knowledge sharing, which would not only highlight industry efforts to reduce its carbon footprint, but was also an avenue to accelerate such development.

“This report is about taking action and about what we are doing. It reflects business being proactive and about utilities working together, sharing best practice and making a difference. We do not have to wait for government to move towards achieving a low-carbon economy,” he told Engineering News.

Dames added that he hoped the initiative would grow over time to include more of the utilities.

The GEI report points to key trends, which include a changing landscape of stakeholder expectations and industry regulations, tariffs being under pressure, the change in the energy mix to meet global demand, a changing carbon footprint, increased investment in technology research and development (R&D), the need for electrification, internal and external energy efficiency becoming a key priority, and adaptation for a changing future.

One of the key findings is that the industry had to balance changing stakeholder expectations with current long-term technology choices, which may have a life cycle of 25 to 100 years.

Further, the GEI report states that 46% of GEI respondents have regulation requiring the inclusion of carbon-free energy in their energy mix, while 54% of the utilities operate in countries which have a regulated requirement for implementation of energy efficiency programmes.

The report also pointed out that 20% of the total 2 265 865 GWh produced by the GEI utilities is made up of renewable sources. Coal makes up 29% of the mix, nuclear energy a marginally higher 30% and gas 15% of the total energy mix. The remaining portion is made up of other sources.

Regardless of specific regulation in a given country, the report also alluded to the GEI utilities making significant investments in both climate-change-related projects and R&D in the last five to ten years. Investments of over $700-million have been made by the GEI utilities in carbon-free or lower-carbon technologies and in the R&D of these technologies.