South African Association for Energy Economics (SAAEE)

Please join us on the 15th of August 2024 for what promises to be a really informative webinar - we have invited Keith Bowen, a Senior Manager in the Energy Market Services Division of the National Transmission Company of South Africa to explain how the proposed wholesale electricity market will function. Register now, participation is free, but numbers are limited. https://lnkd.in/dHpQ5jjb

Please join us on the 15th of August 2024 for what promises to be a really informative webinar - we have invited Keith Bowen, a Senior Manager in the Energy Market Services Division of the National Transmission Company of South Africa to explain how the proposed wholesale electricity market will function. Register now, participation is free, but numbers are limited. https://lnkd.in/dHpQ5jjb

I enjoyed moderating an engaging panel discussion last week with Roy Havemann, Matthew Townshend, PhD, James Masumba Manda and Jack-Vincent Radmore on the pivotal role that governments play in creating an enabling environment for infrastructure development through supportive policy and economic regulation at the Infrastructure Africa conference. Some of the key takeaways were: 1. The successful development of infrastructure (e.g. energy, water, transport and communication etc.) relies on i) careful consideration of what aspects of infrastructure development government and state-owned enterprises must drive or coordinate and ii) how best facilitate and incentivise private investment and participation. 2. Governments and SoCs play an important role in driving and/or coordinate investment when the infrastructure public goods and/or natural monopolies (e.g. roads, transmission networks), there are market failures (e.g. significant risks, long payback period) and/or is not financially viable for private sector to invest but will result in significant net socio-economic benefits. 3. Establishing a clear regulatory framework and a high-quality and independent regulatory environment is critical to attract private investment, ensure fair competition and safeguard the public interest. 4. There are only a handful of energy utilities on the African continent that are currently charging cost-reflective tariffs and are therefore in a sound financial position. This is major deterrent to further investment by both government. but also the private sector that cannot compete with utilities that charge tariffs that are below the costs of production. 5. Regulators on the continent must ensure that the tariffs charged by utilities become cost-reflective - i.e. must reflect the prudently and efficiently incurred costs of providing energy, water etc. and provide a reasonable return on the capital invested. When subsidies are required to provide poor and low-income households with access, they must be explicit and readily available to target groups. 6. Designing tariffs so that one category of rail users or electricity consumers subsidises another is always a bad idea. Cross-subsidies should be avoided. For example expecting rail users of a profitable segment of of the network to carry the costs of unutilised sections artificially inflates the cost of rail relative to road transport which results in more heavy freight traffic on roads. 7. Government policy needs to be consistent. The South African government is providing tax rebates and incentives for the uptake of Solar PV on the one hand and then is imposing a tax on imports of PV modules on the other. Panel members debated whether the new import duty on panels would result in a net economic benefit - while it may support growth of local assembly, will the benefits outweigh the additional cost it will imposes on renewable energy consumers?

Excited to share a great moment with amazing colleagues ( Aaron Praktiknjo Christina Kockel Alanda Venter) at the International Association for Energy Economics (IAEE) conference in Istanbul, Türkiye! 🤝 The networking opportunities at IAEE conferences are unparalleled, fostering collaborations that drive innovation and progress in the energy economics field. Stay tuned—there's more to come from these exciting collaborations! 🚀 #IAEE #EnergyEconomics #Networking #Collaboration #EERU@UP UP Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences

The DMRE released the draft Gas Master Plan last week Friday for public comment. Members of the public are invited to submit inputs/comments by the 15th of June 2024. https://lnkd.in/ehka_7d6