South Africa is one of the highest emitter of greenhouse gas (GHG) per capita worldwide. To address this in the context of climate change and energy issues, South Africa launched its National Energy Efficiency Strategy in 2005 (reviewed in 2008) with an ambitious objective of 12 percent reduction in final energy demand by 2015. South Africa recently played a leading role in the formulation of the Copenhagen Accord at the UNFCCC COP15 and importantly, it pledged to reduce its emissions growth by 34 percent by 2020. This pledge highlights a firm commitment to the climate change agenda and national research points to energy efficiency in the building industry as one area for cost effective emissions reductions. Although South Africa has a clear strategy for energy efficiency, implementation and monitoring of progress remains a challenge, both at national and in particular also at local level because of knowledge and resource capacity constraints. Recognising this challenge, the Department of Energy (DOE) and the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) have requested SDC to assist establishing the energy efficiency monitoring system as well as kick-start implementation of the Energy Efficiency at national and at the municipal level with special focus on the building sector. A parallel project has been launched in 2009 with focus to support the implementation of energy efficiency in the industrial sector.

Climate change and energy efficiency issues gained momentum in South Africa after an electricity crisis emerged in 2007 and 2008. The supply problem is caused by a rapid expansion of the electricity network, growth in the economy without expanding the production capacity since 1994. Strategies such as the 2008 Long-Term Mitigation Scenarios, policy documents and new fiscal measures to penalise GHG emitters have been drafted. In most cases, these documents are well written with good intentions, including the latest commitment in Copenhagen to reduce carbon emissions. However, experience shows that the political commitments fair poorly in terms of implementation and monitoring. The Energy Efficiency Monitoring and Implementation project was introduced to support the Department of Energy and the SALGA in monitoring and implementing their energy efficiency plans and policies at both local and municipal levels.

To develop and support introduction of Monitoring of the energy efficiency targets and support kick-starting implementation of energy efficiency both at national and municipal levels with focus on the building sector.

Five municipalities representing the regional centres outside the area of the large Metros (Johannesburg or Cape Town) have been selected by SALGA as pilot municipalities for the project. These municipalities will be used to pilot local energy efficiency strategy formulation, local plans for implementation of energy efficiency in the building sector, as well as testing the practicalities of the monitoring system. Based on the results achieved during the first years of the project the DoE and SALGA will fine-tune national roll-out plans for both the monitoring system as well as implementation activities.

Expected results:  

The expected project outcomes are that

1) DoE and local government promotes and monitors the implementation of the Energy Efficiency Strategy with specific interventions towards the building sector and

2) Institutional capacity is in place at both national and local government level to manage and monitor.

The project will help to establish at national level national monitoring tool for the Energy Efficiency Strategy and at local levels the translation of national targets at municipal level. The 283 Municipalities of South Africa are at the forefront of energy consumption as they are responsible for the distribution of electricity to buildings and households. At the same time the Municipalities are supposed to implement several strategies defined at national level which are sometimes difficult to harmonise at local level also because electricity is one of the income streams for the municipalities. A typical challenge is for example: saving energy and providing free electricity for the poor. The project will assist in the development of framework and guidelines to establish energy efficiency plans at the local level taking poverty issues into consideration and subsequent monitoring of the plans to achieve agreed energy efficiency targets in 2015

Department of Energy (DoE) and South African Local Government Association  (SALGA)  

Phase 1 01.04.2010 - 30.06.2015   (Completed)