Power and utilities companies globally face the triple challenge of improving environmental performance, keeping consumers’ costs down and maintaining system reliability. The focus is now on the transformation of the utilities industry and the concern around consumers and their experience as well as the ever-looming evolution where we are seeing consumers becoming “prosumers”.
According to PwC, the unique utilities model is a thing of the past as the growth in electricity demand, investments in the power sector all over Africa, aging and badly maintained systems, smarter and cheaper renewable technologies and the changing role of the customer are revolutionising the power and utilities market structure that drives company and country strategies.
This discussion paper will examine key influences that are making power supply security an even more critical issue today, as well as highlight the steps that utilities can take to preserve their business.

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Energy Intensive User Group of Southern Africa (EIUG) believes there is policy, legislative and regulatory space to introduce new electricity pricing arrangements to help restart of idle mining and process-industry activities, as well as encourage new investments to absorb Eskom’s surplus, which it sees persisting for a number of years yet.
Amid flat demand and rising supply, the State-owned power utility claims to have up to 4 000 MW of surplus available on a daily basis and has indicated that the excess-supply situation will persist until at least 2021 – a marked departure from the recent past, when it resorted to rotational load-shedding to avoid a national blackout.
The organisation is, therefore, supportive of Eskom’s initiative to promote mining and industry electricity sales and reports that its members are engaging with the utility to explore opportunities to reopen mothballed plant. “These sectors are major contributors to the South African economy. There is the potential to grow significantly and continue to be and become even more important as a catalyst for economic growth and job creation.”​
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CSIR presentation to the Portfolio Committee on Energy

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Powering Africa announces the availability of Financial Support for the acquisition of Alternative Energy for domestic and commercial use. Powering Africa, in promoting Alternative Energy, has partnered with Greenfin Finance to make it possible for many households to become less dependent on the State Utility.
It is now possible to purchase our equipment and pay for it on a monthly basis over a five year period. Given the annual increases for Electricity over the next five years, installing a Powering Africa Plug & Play System is an obvious "no brainer" Making provision for an alternative Energy Source is no longer "a nice to have gadget" around the house, but a "must have" in response to the monopoly of supply, and the frightening increase in cost in the years to come. For more information go to our Website and "click" on "Finance" or click on the image on the left.

There is no commonly agreed definition of Energy Management (EM) and numerous definitions can be found. For the sake of this application note, we will define EM as the practice of making informed decisions, based on structural insights into energy consumption and its impact on an organization. EM entails proactive and conscious management of an organization’s energy consumption, as opposed to an ad hoc, passive approach. Energy in this case includes the typical utilities, often referred to as WAGES (Water, Air, Gas, Electricity and Steam). The goal of energy management is similar to the Trias Energetica concept and aims to reduce energy waste, increase energy-efficiency of remaining energy consumers and increase the share of renewable energy.

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