Cape Town - Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson has described renewable energy as one of the most successful programmes in the country with the government to increase investments from R194 billion to R225bn.
Joemat-Pettersson told Independent Media in her offices in Cape Town on Wednesday that more projects were in the pipeline to connect renewables to the grid.
Renewable energy is derived from natural processes (eg sunlight and wind) that are replenished at a higher rate than they are consumed.
Joemat-Pettersson said private sector investments in renewables would also boost local economies and create jobs.
She said with the new window for Independent Power Producers (IPPs) they will increase private sector investment from R194bn to R225bn.
Through the IPPS the government would be able to connect more households.
“The IPP is one of the most successful programmes in the world, in energy because it addresses what we have in energy,” she said.
The renewables address environmental concerns because it was clean energy.
The government has procured 6 400 megawatts from renewables and this will be upscaled to 7000MW by the middle of this year, she said.
Joemat-Pettersson said they will connect 47 projects to the grid and the impact of renewables will be felt in the immediate term to long-term.
“The programme will not only bring investments to the country, but investments to local communities,” she said.
So far renewables have brought in R194bn in investments and this will shoot up to R225bn.
“This is in excess of 4 percent of national gross investments as reported by the South African Reserve Bank, and this is the most successful programme we have,” said Joemat-Pettersson.
During the next phase they will bring small-scale investors.
She said they were meeting all Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment targets in the implementation of renewables.
She said this was the largest investment project in the country.
For the second phase of the IPPs they will involve local participation of communities.
Joemat-Pettersson also said they also wanted renewables to industrialise the economy.
“The employment opportunities are condensed when the projects are under construction, but decline when the projects are completed. The project has to grow,” she said.
“Under construction we had 15 000 jobs, but we want those jobs to be sustainable. These jobs were 70 percent more than we had anticipated,” she said.
“We want the industrialisation of these projects where we will manufacture panels and turbines than importing them,” said Joemat-Pettersson.
Political Bureau