Energy Saving News
South Africa Needs Energy Efficiency
AN interesting article on allafrica.com highlights the importance of energy efficiency in South Africa (SA).
The author of the piece, Siseko Njobeni, reckons SA will be caught out when their economy recovers and the demand for electricity increases, because currently the country seems to have put energy efficiency on the back burner.
Eskom, SA's utility company, has said that the nations electricity supply will be stretched between next year and 2012 and after 2017.
When the government introduced the energy efficiency strategy in 2005, it said the solution to the electricity supply-demand imbalance should not always entail the commissioning of new power. The strategy must include demand reduction, in other words energy efficiency..
In fact, reducing electricity demand is a cheaper and quicker solution to the imbalance that Eskom is warning about, often called "the low-hanging fruit".
The article asks:
"If it is so important, what is stopping SA from realising the potential of energy efficiency?"
And reports:
"In her foreword to the energy efficiency strategy, former minerals and energy minister Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said awareness of the costs and benefits of energy efficiency was "a neglected area"."
Eskom's senior manager in the integrated demand management division, Dhevan Pillay, says that, to ensure power supply, the company wants its industrial customers to implement energy efficiency initiatives to reduce their consumption.
Thursday 26th August 2010
