South Africa is undergoing a rapid energy transformation—one that will reshape the electricity generation resources used to meet customers’ electricity needs in the decades ahead. Striking the right balance between reliability and affordability on the path to a low-carbon energy future requires understanding the full complement of available resources and deploying those resources in a manner that takes into account considerations specific to the region.
Experience across global energy systems has shown that optionality—the ability to draw on all energy supply resources—can help ensure a reliable, resilient, and cost-effective transition. For energy companies at the leading edge of the transition, an optimized approach is one that seeks to get the most out of existing assets, while deploying emerging solutions in a manner that minimizes risk by shrinking the gap between initial demonstrations at scale and nth-of-a-kind deployments.
Looking across global energy systems to examine large electricity markets by country, France leads the decarbonization journey to this point. The country has reduced CO2 primarily through conventional nuclear.
As South Africa progresses toward a low-carbon future, energy leaders are predominantly exploring four areas of emerging technologies—advanced nuclear, hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, and long-duration energy storage. This paper examines the state of each technology type in the context of South Africa’s evolving energy economy and global efforts to accelerate technology development and deployment.
As energy leaders assess the technologies that will comprise the future energy system, leading innovation on the long-term path to a low-carbon future will be key to preserving affordability, reliability, and resilience at each step.