Energy efficiency and economic growth may not become the result of the proposed regulation by South Africa’s power utility Eskom. At a meeting organized by EE Publishers, Mike Rossouw, past chairman of the power consumer group Energy Intensive User Group (EIUG), said the plan ignores the energy intensity already present in the country.
The Energy Conservation Scheme (ECS) proposed by Eskom and the Department of Minerals and Energy, aims to reduce the demand for energy by 10% over the next four years. Tariffs will be imposed on individuals who exceed their energy allotments under four pricing bands: allocation, control, disincentive, and punitive.
Roussouw recognized a consensus to lower consumption and reduce waste, but he is not convinced that the economic impact will be as low as suggested by the proponents of the ECS given the energy-intensity of the South African economy. He added that energy-efficient technologies take a while to be implemented and believes that a more disaggregated approach is needed.
The ECS is drawn from a similar method taken in Brazil where the results reportedly found that the industries within the country will adapt to avoid the penalties, while still allowing economic growth despite the constraints. However, the National Business Initiative’s Yaw Afrane-Okese said that the correlations between Brazil and South Africa are weak.
“There is no evidence of significant voluntary energy savings effort by big energy users before the Brazilian crisis, while some of South Africa’s top energy users have made significant gains in energy savings through the energy efficiency accord,” Afrane-Okese asserts, referring to the a voluntary agreement signed between the Ministry and a number of large South African businesses, and involving a commitment to reduce final energy demand 15% by 2015 had been agreed.