-: Andre, hi.
Tell us, if you would,
about Eskom's Just Energy Transition.
-: So the Eskom Just Energy Transition is an integral part
of our corporate strategy.
We need to build new generation capacity,
we need to decarbonize,
we need to solve South Africa's electricity crisis
by adding as much capacity as we can as quickly as we can,
as affordably as we can,
which leads us to the really large scale rollout
of new renewable energy generation capacity.
But we have to bear in mind that currently,
about 91% of the electricity
that we generate comes from coal fired plants.
Our plants are old.
They are on average 41 years old
and they have had a very hard life.
So we are going to accelerate
the retirement of these plants.
And of course, all of this change
creates a tremendous amount of anxiety
amongst those who've invested in the coal value chain.
So what we need to do is
to take the inevitable energy transition
and make sure that it is just to those communities
that have invested generations of sweat equity
into coal as a commodity.
We can't just put a padlock on the gate and walk away.
We have to really work at enabling the transition
as a just one.
-: How are you calming that anxiety?
What actions are you taking?
-: Two things.
I think we need to communicate.
You can never communicate enough
and I don't think we have communicated enough.
We need to do more of that.
But then you also need to deliver.
You need to actually have proof points on the ground
of people gainfully employed in new green technologies.
If you don't do either of those,
then you will inevitably give rise to a lot of suspicion,
a lot of concerns that are legitimate,
and you need to keep on plugging away at this.
-: How should South Africa be collaborating
with the global community for a Just Energy Transition?
-: What we are offering, I think,
is an opportunity to act as the laboratory
for some of these ideas.
Our flagship Just Energy Transition project,
our Komati power station,
which was finally shut down on the 31st of October
after having served South Africa for more than 60 years.
It breathed its last breath.
That is where we want to repurpose,
and repower, and also retrain.
What we're finding is that the global community
are coming to us wanting to learn about how to do this.
Now, I won't proclaim to have any specific wisdom
in this regard.
We are learning by doing,
but I think the fact
that we are right at the cutting edge
of implementing these changes
also gives us an advantage
to attract a lot of concessional financing.
Just for Komati,
we have obtained from the World Bank
and the Climate Investment Fund
just under a billion dollars in concessional financing.
So that, I think, is an indication
that people are very keen
to support this type of initiative.
-: What can the world learn from South Africa's experience
and how can South Africa
or how do you see South Africa
collaborating with the global community
to accelerate this change?
-: I think we are very keen to collaborate
because we are not in competition with one another.
Carbon is a global phenomenon
and the idea that we are putting forward is
that the developing world offers the best opportunity
for decarbonizing the global economy.
To mitigate a ton of carbon in South Africa
is a 10th of the cost of emitting
an equivalent ton of carbon in Germany, for example.
So our calling card to the global community is to say,
come to South Africa
where your tax euros will get bigger bang for buck
than by decarbonizing the last ton in Germany.
Now, it's a slightly controversial argument
and there are all local interests
and political interests involved,
but I think we are getting the traction
and we are getting the support that we are looking for.
-: And finally,
how do you see the power sector evolving in Africa?
-: I see, as the chief executive
of the incumbent monolithic monopolist,
we are going to unbundle
specifically in order to attract
more private sector generation capacity.
We are going to see a significant decarbonization.
We plan to retire 22 gigawatts
of coal-fired capacity by 2035,
which is just under half of our coal fleet.
That'll remove about a hundred million tons of carbon
from the atmosphere every year.
And we are going to see the trends of decarbonization,
democratization, digitalization become very important
in enabling this transition to take place.
So it's very exciting to see a new industry being born,
as it were.
-: Andre, thank you so much.
-: Thank you.