Hon Minister, this Energy Budget Vote is taking place at a time in our country and, in fact, the world's history where a new paradigm has to emerge within the energy economy. We are firstly entering the era of peak oil, which will be characterised by a fluctuating but consistently high price of oil playing havoc with all those economies that are still wholly dependent on this fossil fuel.
We are also entering a carbon constrained future where countries like our own will have to massively decarbonise our growth path if we are to remain competitive and live up to our global responsibilities of warding off climate change.
On the positive side, however, countries that are able to rapidly take hold of the opportunities that this new paradigm offers will be able to position themselves to grow in a rapidly expanding global market.
South Africa has started to engage with this new paradigm of clean energy and it must be said that the latest Integrated Resource Plan, IRP, does represent a fundamental disjuncture with our past energy planning. Just five years ago, I was a lone voice in these Budget Votes calling for renewable energy, whereas today on the rhetorical level at least, renewable energy has entered the mainstream of our debates. The problem however, is that we are still flirting with this new paradigm and have not fully committed to it.
The targets for the renewable energy on the latest IRP are still far too low, with only 9% of generated energy projected to come from these sources in 2030. The problem with such a low target and one which is spread over such a long period, is that it will not be enough to spur on the establishment of locally based industries in this field.
We need to become part of a global value chain producing many of the components for the clean energy technologies; and to do that we need to be sending out very clear and ambitious signals to the market.
A number of research papers, including government documents such as the South African Renewable Energy Initiative, and the Minister's own department's review on the renewable energy White Paper - which, Minister, you still have not released - claims that a target of 15% renewable energy by 2020, is both feasible and required in order to firmly position our industries in this space.
Once these industries have been established, we will then have the capacity to massively upscale our efforts and even perhaps reach a target of 50% by 2030. Instead of creating certainty in this new market though, we are constantly changing the goal posts. The much-vaunted feed-in tariff, which was announced with such fanfare over two years ago, has still not concluded any deals with renewable energy producers.
After developers have sunk millions into developing feasible projects, Nersa has now signalled its intention to reduce the tariffs. To add insult to injury, there is no even speculation that the feed-in tariff will, in fact, be abandoned in favour of a straight tendering process.
This speculation is fuelled by the fact that the latest regulations for new energy generation do not make any mention of the feed-in tariff. Minister, can you give the assurance today that your department is still committed to implementing a feed-in tariff and that we will start to see a number of projects being approved before COP-17 at the end of the year.
Another area in which the IRP is not ambitious enough is that of energy of efficiency. Why is it that we have only included a target of 3 400 MW of the energy savings when Eskom itself has said that we can achieve savings of between 10 000 MW to 12 000 MW?
Energy efficiency should be our number one priority and this should not only be expressed through advertising campaigns. Minister, you have the power to implement new regulations that will make energy savings mandatory and provide real incentives for the roll-out of energy efficient technologies. Energy efficiency must be taken out of the hands of Eskom, because, as one commentator has stated, it is like asking a butcher to advocate vegetarianism during a meat shortage. Energy efficiency must be given a proper institutional home with real budgets and personnel to drive programmes throughout our economy. In this way we cannot only avoid further energy crunches but also save our economy huge amounts of money that would otherwise be spent on building more and more power stations. We are at a crossroad in our energy choices and the ID will continue to push us to become one of the leaders in the new clean energy paradigm. I thank you.