Overview
South Africa is Africa’s largest user of coal-fired-power on the continent and ranked 12th in terms of global emissions. It is commonly acknowledged by government and key institutions such as Eskom that South Africa has a shortfall of around 4,000 MW to 6,000MW of reliable electricity generation, which is negatively impacting the economy, businesses and jobs. In 2021, South Africa experienced 1,169 hours of load shedding, a 40% increase from 2020 with 2022 well on track to exceed the 2021 levels, as shown in the diagram below. PwC has estimated the adverse impact of load-shedding in 2021 was a reduction in real GDP growth of up to 3.1 percentage points, costing the economy up to 400,000 potential jobs.
Climate change pressures and the rapid innovation in “Clean Technologies” is increasing the complexity of the regulatory reform required to facilitate the energy transition and the regulatory environment will remain in a dynamic state of flux for the foreseeable future. All stakeholders will have to understand and work within this uncertainty in order to improve energy security, grow opportunities as well as address decarbonisation pressures.
Below are some key insights that are explored in the report:
Understanding South Africa’s electricity landscape.
The relationship between energy law and policy and climate change law and policy.
An outline of South Africa’s regulatory environment related to electricity.
International law and policy driving the ‘Energy Transition’ and an overview of South Africa’s energy laws and policies.
Navigating regulatory risks from a municipal perspective.
Navigating regulatory risks from a private sector perspective.
Some of the report’s key findings from Africa are:
- 71% of organisations in South Africa and across Africa are seeing increases to their cyber budgets in the 2023 financial year.
- Since 2020, organisations globally, across Africa and South Africa said they were most impacted by increased exposure to cyber attacks due to an increase in digitisation.
- South African organisations say they expect third-party breaches, hack-and-leak operations and attacks on Operational Technology and Industrial Internet of Things to significantly increase in 2023, compared to 2022.
When asked what would make the biggest difference in transforming cybersecurity across their organisation in the next 12 to 18 months, respondents stated the following:
- South African organisations: leadership that drives cybersecurity throughout the organisation
- Organisations across Africa: educating the board on cyber risks
- Global organisations: ensuring all non-cybersecurity employees understand the potential cyber implications of their actions
Contact us
PwC Africa ESG Platform Leader, Strategy& and Chief Economist, Strategy& South Africa
Tel: +27 (0) 82 708 2330
