South Africa

High level summary of work

USAID and LBNL are supporting the South African Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE), the Department of Energy of South Africa, and the South African National Energy Development Institute (SANEDI) bring demand side management, energy savings, and standards and labeling.

Activities

Demand Side Management

USAID and LBNL are supporting the South African Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) in its effort to design a new Demand-Side Management (DSM) program. The LBNL team is providing inputs on DMRE’s approach to integrate energy efficiency as part of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s emergency response plan to address the nation’s energy crisis, characterized by the prevalence of rolling black outs impacting millions of people and hampering economic development.

The LBNL team was invited to present initial findings of its analysis at an internal workshop held last August and it will continue to work closely with the unit responsible for energy efficiency at DMRE to provide continuous inputs. As a result of this technical assistance, the LBNL team is helping Eskom (the government-owned utility) and DMRE to shape a new DSM program that will have an initial goal of saving 600MW in the short term.

Improved DSM on the South African power system can alleviate the pressures on the grid that are causing rolling blackouts and, in the process, avoid costs associated with building new generators and transmission lines, save customers money, and lower pollution from electric generators.

Energy Savings Impacts

The Department of Energy of South Africa and the South African National Energy Development Institute (SANEDI) hosted a workshop on July 31st on Energy Efficiency Modeling in the Residential Sector. The workshop gave the opportunity for DOE to present the modeling methodology, assumptions and results of the new tool developed in collaboration with LBNL and USAID to demonstrate the multiple benefits of the revision of the Standard and Labeling program. More than 30 people from government agencies, the private sector, universities and NGO attended the workshop and provided meaningful feedback to be integrated in a final report. The final report will describe the modeling tool and will provide a high level summary of the costs to the government and benefits for the country of revising the S&L program.

Standards and Labeling Program

South Africa has committed to pursue improved energy efficiency to encourage a sustainable development of its energy sector. In 2016, the Department of Energy (DoE) implemented the first Energy Efficiency Standards and Labeling (S&L) program in the country, covering 7 major residential products and resulting Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) has been assisting DOE since 2013 by providing recommendations and technical analyses to inform the development of the S&L program. LBNL is currently continuing its collaboration with the Department of Energy work in South Africa in the following areas:

Impact Assessment: LBNL is working with the Department’s Planning Unit to integrate tools for modeling energy savings and build sustainable local capacity for assessing the impact of energy efficiency standards in a comprehensive energy planning process. LBNL hosted a training in Berkeley for staff from the Department, the South African National Energy Development Institute (SANEDI) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
Technology Neutral Lighting Standard: LBNL is working with UNDP and local consultants to help the Department of Energy assessing the costs and benefits of implementing a technology neutral standard and labeling scheme for lighting in energy savings equivalent to the generation output of an 800 MW plant.

Source: South Africa: Energy Savings Estimates from New Standard and Labeling Program Policy Brief, LBNL