South Africa discusses building 14,400 km of power lines for 440 billion rand — Daily Maverick
In Johannesburg, South Africa, the board of the National Transmission Company South Africa (NTCSA), during a three-day strategic session, discussed what would be needed to build 14,400 km of power lines and install 271 transformers over the next 10 years. According to the participants in the discussion, this work could require 440 billion rand.
Mark Swilling, a participant in the meeting, wrote about this in an opinion column for Daily Maverick. According to him, the session focused on the technical and financial conditions for developing South Africa's electricity infrastructure for the energy transition and maintaining electricity affordability for the population.
Financing the transition
Before traveling to Johannesburg, Swilling and his colleagues attended the International Sustainability Transitions conference in Zurich, which brought together about 600 researchers. The author noted that of approximately 400 papers presented, only one concerned financing the transition to sustainable development.
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Representatives of the Centre for Sustainability Transitions plan to propose a separate track dedicated to transition financing for the next conference in Brazil. During a trip to Bengaluru, India, Swilling and his colleagues also discussed redirecting financial flows away from unsustainable models of production and consumption.
Resources and inequality
After returning to South Africa, Swilling hosted a working group of the UN-affiliated International Resource Panel in Stellenbosch. Participants were preparing the next Global Resource Outlook report and working on topics including global material flows, resource trade, critical minerals governance, and future scenarios.
The group also visited the Enkanini informal settlement near the center of Stellenbosch. The columnist linked this visit to discussions of social inequality and the challenges of the energy transition in South Africa.
