Hosted by Dr Clinton Carter Brown, Head: CSIR Energy Centre

South Africa is relatively energy secure, but highly dependent on coal for much of its energy needs, and even more dependent on imported oil and liquid fuels for the transportation sector. Efforts to decarbonise the South African energy mix and increase energy security to ensure a cleaner and more sustainable sector will require creative thinking, enabling technologies, strong partnerships and ambitious leadership. Recent CSIR research showed that it is already least-cost to pursue a low-carbon renewable energy led mix. More interestingly, there is a relatively small cost premium to further accelerate low carbon technologies and carbon dioxide emission reductions from the power sector. This furthermore presents an opportunity to decarbonise other harder-to-abate sectors like industrial processes and transportation by increasing levels of sector-coupling, whilst ensuring costs remain competitive and affordable for all energy users. This sector coupling opportunity in South Africa implicitly requires a scaled-up hydrogen economy where hydrogen is used as an energy carrier, as a storage mechanism and for final end-use both locally and for export markets. This session intends to unpack some of the long-term decarbonisation opportunities that exist for South Africa in the energy sector and intends to encourage open and frank discussions about the future of the energy sector as a critical enabler and driver for economic growth and job creation.

Dr Clinton Carter Brown, Head: CSIR Energy Centre, CSIR (Host); Nhlanhla Ngidi, Head of Energy and Electricity: South African Local Government Association; Mandy Rambharos, Head: Eskom Just Energy Transition office; Aalia Cassim, Director: Microeconomic Policy, Division: Economic Policy Analysis and Forecasting, National Treasury; Dr Jarrad Wright, CSIR principal engineer; Dee Fischer, Chief Director: Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries

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