David Yutar
10 October 2005
Electricity costs poor people more than it does the wealthy, a parliamentary forum on energy legislation and sustainable development has heard.
Glynn Morris, managing director of a company which produces alternative and renewable sources of electricity, told delegates at the three-day international forum that the poor "spend proportionately more cash on energy services than richer people" and that they "also have much lower levels of access and choice in terms of energy services".
Morris was delivering a paper on the contribution of renewable energy - generated from natural resources and regenerated over a short time - to access and poverty alleviation.
Only 16% of South Africa's electricity comes from renewable resources.
Morris called for the creation of better incentives to reduce electricity consumption, pointing out that there were no incentives for utilities to reduce consumption because this would reduce their revenue.
He told delegates certain forms of power generation such as nuclear plants created far fewer jobs than others which used renewable energy sources.
South Africa was 92% dependent on coal for its electricity, he said.
The country was aiming to achieve a 12% reduction in energy consumption by 2014.
The City of Cape Town hopes to get 10% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.
Jan Glazewski, Professor of Law at the University of Cape Town, said although South Africa had no umbrella act which embraced renewable energy, the country had been moving towards such a bill and an energy efficiency strategy.
The Mineral and Petroleum Energy Resources Development Act embraced sustainable energy "in a big way", said Glazewski.
The National Energy Bill will come before parliament in the near future.
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