Abstracts

9 also highlights an even more important aspect of employment creation called localization: the proportion of a technology’s entire value chain that can be easily provided in-country. Solar PV and wind have 45% and 79% immediate localization in South Africa, respectively, whereas coal has 53%. Therefore, in aggregate, the value chain that supports renewable generation infrastructure can be localized more easily to employ South Africans than that for coal. In fact, at a national scale, new solar PV and wind generation capacity would produce 30% more permanent direct and indirect jobs than new coal capacity (see Table 2) (IEP cited by Bischof-Niemz & Creamer, 2019). The benefits of solar and wind over coal may be clear in the aggregate and in the long term, but ensuring that such benefits can reach all South Africans in a reasonable time frame may be elusive. Looking Forward If the politics of restructuring Eskom are to work…we need to honor coal mining and power-station communities, whose labor has been the foundation on which South Africa’s industrial development has been built. —Dr. Grové Steyn, EE Publishers, 2018 A key reason why ideas such as the privatization of generation or greater use of renewables have not caught on is that socio- political challenges unique to South Africa make seemingly acceptable solutions much more complicated to execute. To overcome these challenges, the SouthAfrican government can do more to engage citizens and assuage their fears. It can combat the notion that renewable generation is not labor intensive; solar and wind provide more but different jobs. The government can use its proximity with unions to help workers understand that the transformation of the electricity sector is a multi-decade transition. Coal-related jobs will not go away tomorrow. Unions, in particular those that represent coal miners and coal- fired power station workers, can take the lead in educating their members and re-skilling them for the plentiful jobs that a renewed electricity sector eventually will provide. Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) is South Africa’s legislation that seeks to redress the legacy of apartheid by requiring the economic participation and empowerment of historically disadvantaged people (see article by Buonasora in this volume). Private participation in the electricity sector can be strictly held to the standards of BBBEE to ensure local ownership, job creation, and skills development. Local leadership in communities that have historically supported the mineral- energy complex can lobby for renewable generation projects to be located on land previously used for coal mines or coal-fired power stations; such locations already are conveniently close to the existing electricity transmission lines, labor, and other amenities. Public funds, such as pension funds and other community-based trusts, can be used to grant ownership stakes in solar PV or wind farms to the general public and ensure that they play a role in the technology’s promising upside. South Africa has taken the first few steps in responding to the need to transform its electricity sector. The Roadmap lays out what needs to be done with Eskom, particularly to address its structural and operational challenges. However, its proposals to address Eskom’s debt, the lack of competition in generation, and the country’s over-reliance on coal still fall short. The government has many opportunities to engage all South Africans, especially the historically disadvantaged, to create a political environment in which renewable and competitive electricity generation is acceptable. Hopefully, the government will honestly and openly engage workers’ unions, community leadership, and all of South Africa, not only to successfully transform the electricity sector but also to do so for the benefit of all South Africans.