Post-Apartheid Electricity Policy and the Emergence of South Africa’s Renewable Energy Sector

Baker, Lucy (2017). Post-Apartheid Electricity Policy and the Emergence of South Africa’s Renewable Energy Sector. In: Arent, Douglas; Arndt, Channing; Miller, Mackay; Tarp, Finn and Zinaman, Owen eds. The Political Economy of Clean Energy Transitions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 371–390.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198802242.003.0019

Abstract

This chapter situates South Africa’s new renewable energy sector within the context of the country’s electricity system and in turn its unique political economy. The author charts major developments in the country’s energy policy and governance since the end of apartheid and shows how electricity policy is determined by economic, political, and technological factors. Focusing on shifts that have taken place in the country’s electricity governance and policy-making, from a period of generation surplus in 1980s to the supply-side constraints of the present, the chapter asks how, why, and when South Africa’s renewable electricity sector has emerged. The author examines the contested negotiation of key policies, which have been fundamental to the introduction of a renewable energy sector, considers how the new renewable energy sector has evolved thus far, and raises key challenges and concerns for its future development.

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