South Africa's Energy Crisis Is Driving a 'Solar Boom', but There's a Downside

The privately-led quintupling of rooftop solar in 2 years takes some pressure off the grid but, without planning, risks deepening energy apartheid.

In his affluent neighbourhood at the foot of Table Mountain, in Cape Town, solar panels now dot the rooftops. To escape the power cuts of up to 12 hours a day - locally known as"loadshedding" - an increasing number of South Africans like Lalu are opting for private electricity generation, driving an unprecedented solar boom.At the source of South Africa's electricity crisis are breakdowns and disruptions at its ageing fleet of coal-fired power plants.

In 2001, Ngwane co-founded the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee to"defend the working class' rights to electricity". Under the former segregationist regime, he says,"cheap Black labour was used to dig out the coal and work at power stations, but Black areas were left in the darkness"."People thought with the new government, we would get electricity," he says.

To ensure a fair and effective energy transition, Viljoen says the government should adopt a"multifaceted approach" that includes allowing households to sell their solar energy back to the grid, promoting community solar projects, and encouraging municipalities to invest in their own renewable energy projects.

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