"E-walleting the sun": Challenges of affordability and justice for South Africa’s energy transition
03 September 2026 | Story Sarah Marriott. Photos Lerato Maduna. Read time 9 min.
Dr Joel Nana, panellist at the sixth Collective Conversations: On Science for Society event.
South Africa's energy transition has gained significant momentum in recent years, driven by the urgency of load shedding and growing investment in renewable energy. The electricity crisis easing has catalysed questions about whether the country can balance climate commitments, energy security, affordability and social justice.
These, among other critical questions, shaped the sixth instalment of the Collective Conversations: On Science for Society, a dialogue series hosted by the University of Cape Town (UCT). Launched in April 2025, this series aims to bring together voices from multiple sectors and leading thinkers from across disciplines to engage with pressing societal challenges – particularly those pertinent to the African continent.
The event, titled “South Africa’s energy transition: After the crisis”, was held on 25 August 2026 and closed out the series for the year. The forum brought together expert speakers to discuss the country’s complex and contested transition to a cleaner energy future.
The quadruple helix as a catalyst
In his official welcome, Deputy Vice Chancellor for Research and Internationalisation, Professor Thokozani Majozi, introduced the conceptual framework of the evening as the "quadruple helix". This model represents the active intersection and interaction between academia, business, civil society and policy.
Prof Thokozani Majozi, DVC: Research and Internationalisation, frames the event series premise within the "quadruple helix" model.
This sixth edition marked the first time in the series that all four components of the helix were actively represented on the panel. In previous events this representation has straddled the audience and speaker cohorts. The programme was compressed to accommodate all four voices, setting the stage for a fully balanced debate.
Professor Harro von Blottnitz, director of UCT’s Energy Systems Research Group (ESRG) and academic lead for the evening, acknowledged that the all-male panel – during Women's Month – was due to two of the initial, female panellists from industry and civil society declining due to scheduling conflicts.
“Whilst there are excellent women in the field of energy, they remain a minority,” he noted. He did assure the audience that UCT has exceptional talent in the pipeline, and recognised the women researchers and postgraduate students in the ESRG who are shaping the energy transition as the next generation of “women-in-power”.
The academic provocation: "Load shedding is over"
"I'll start with an opening bid of the modest sum of R1 billion, and that is what motorists and truckers fork out every day at the pumps. So energy systems are big systems," said Prof Harro von Blottnitz - kickstarting his presentation.
Examining the sheer scale of the energy transition challenge by using a "macroscope" to explain the system, Von Blottnitz contextualised global climate change with a stunning comparison: humanity’s entire annual fossil energy use is 40 times smaller than the amount of heat that entered the world's oceans in 2024 alone. Since 80% of South Africa's national emissions originate from the energy sector, playing a "fair share" in global climate action required a rapid domestic energy transition.
Prof Harro von Blottnitz's presentation was titled "The energy transition: An urgent matter?".
His most provocative claim, based on contrasting views from some of the other panellists, was that load shedding in the country is “structurally resolved." Citing rooftop solar, increased private renewable generation, improved generation performance and battery storage, he argued that South Africa has moved beyond the structural causes of the crisis, even though public trauma remains high.
He warned, however, that “while an energy transition is indeed happening, the quality of recent planning processes is questionable and it may be more contested than planned”.
“South Africa has moved beyond the structural causes of the [load-shedding] crisis, even though public trauma remains high.”
“The question remains whether enough momentum has been created by the new renewable industries to drive this transition forward despite planning weaknesses,” Von Blottnitz said. “If it is a transition without capable and intentional state leadership, it is unclear what the prospects might be for it to be just.”
Some policy realism
Responding from a government perspective, Alwie Lester, special advisor on energy to the Premier in the Western Cape, took a more sceptical view. Drawing on his 25 years of experience at Eskom, Lester noted that there was a marked urgency during load shedding, driven by state capacity failures.
Some of the panellists included Dan Ginsberg, Alwie Lester (centre) and Prof Harro Von Blottnitz.
“Everyone could feel that pain and there was a response to it,” he said. “But we very quickly realised that there was a structural problem in the industry. And government has moved with urgency, but not sufficiently.”
For Lester, the new burning platform is energy affordability. “What we see happening now is slightly different. With load shedding retreating – I don't want to say it's completely gone – another urgency being created is around the affordability of electricity. That is a driving factor getting us across the line to the transition,” he said.
He also warned that the restructuring of Eskom could create significant capacity shortages in grid management, and that the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) was a major risk for South African exports – if production remains dependent on Eskom coal-generated electricity.
“I think our big challenge in government is around procurement;” he concluded, noting that the private sector would be a critical player in funding future infrastructure projects.
“E-walleting" the sun
Dr Joel Nana, project manager at Sustainable Energy Africa and a UCT PhD alumnus, argued that much of the continent’s energy transition is already being driven not by state policy, but by a "bottom-up revolution" led by citizens and businesses taking matters into their own hands.
Dr Joel Nana proposed the concept of virtually transferring excess urban rooftop solar to rural households.
In Africa, rooftop solar PV now represents 75% of all solar installations. Dr Nana cited examples from Zambia, building 900 MW of solar (25% of its grid capacity) in three years after a devastating drought wiped out 90% of its hydro generation; Nigeria, building 4.4 GW of solar (32% of its grid capacity) after removing diesel fuel subsidies; and Kenya’s solar capacity now representing 55% of its grid. In South Africa, citizens and businesses installed approximately 9 GW of rooftop solar in three years, matching the amount of renewable capacity the government procured over 15 years.
Nana also proposed a more inclusive approach to distributed generation, suggesting that surplus solar energy could effectively be e-walleted and credited to family members in rural areas.
"If I built this big solar PV system on my roof and generate more than I need, the regulations allow me to inject or export the excess to the grid and be compensated for it. But why can't I account some of that to my mom’s electricity bill in the village?" he asked. “Basically, we just need the regulatory frameworks and policies to empower all of us to become participants in this market and not just leave it to the big solar farms.”
The financial reality check
Dan Ginsberg, executive director and head actuary at Discovery Green, brought a sobering mathematical and economic perspective to the discussion. He noted that if electricity tariffs had simply kept pace with inflation over the last 20 years, they would be a quarter of the price they are today.
Dan Ginsberg's most hard-hitting and widely discussed comment challenged the optimism surrounding the end of power cuts, exposing a structural illness in the economy.
At the same time, South Africa currently produces the dirtiest electricity in the world per kilowatt-hour due to its coal dependency. To transition to clean energy and build the necessary generation and transmission infrastructure, Ginsberg estimated a stunning cost of R2 trillion – around the annual budget of the entire country's government. “The public fiscus cannot afford this, making private sector investment critical,” he said.
He also highlighted a severe physical bottleneck: "We need to build 14 000 km of new transmission wires over the next five-to-10 years to support these new power plants". In stark contrast, Eskom built only 186 km of transmission lines in a nine-month period last year.
The debate: Collapsed demand and tariff manipulation
During the panel discussion, Ginsberg argued that the absence of load shedding is partly linked to declining electricity demand caused by de-industrialisation. In addition, as wealthy consumers move off-grid, municipalities have aggressively upped fixed network charges to shield their revenue.
Lester and Nana warned of a "death spiral" for municipalities that depend heavily on electricity tariffs. Lester noted that Cape Town's energy demand from Eskom dropped by 6% over 10 years, yet Eskom kept its same cost structure and simply increased fixed network charges on remaining consumers to balance its books.
Fostering understanding, learning and collective action
As the event marked the final edition of the series for 2026, the evening concluded with a formal vote of thanks from UCT’s Acting Executive Director for Research, Christina Pather.
She lauded Africa Melane, CapeTalk and 702 radio broadcaster, for fulfilling the crucial role of facilitator for the Collective Conversations events to date and expressed gratitude to the panellists for sharing their expertise. She also thanked the UCT community, audience, the organising team in the Research Office and Professor Majozi for supporting this vital platform, emphasising that these conversations are essential for building a just, sustainable and collaborative South African society.
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