About the Program

This conference brings together local and international perspectives focused on interrogating ideal and successful methodologies in the transmission of electricity. Wheeling, which is the transmission of electricity from the point of production to the end user, has been successfully implemented worldwide in deregulated markets but becomes challenging in the South African context due the increasing production of variable renewable power in an environment that has not yet been developed to support this. South Africa currently has a regulated market, and as is largely the case on the African continent, a state-owned entity monopolizes the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity and this model has proved over many years to be ineffective for a myriad of reasons and the continent remains plagued with an inconsistent and unreliable supply of electricity. For the few independent producers that exist, one of the major challenges that exists, is that they often operate in decentralized locations and  issues of inadequate supportive infrastructure and electricity networks in underdeveloped areas come to the fore.

Wheeling presents a viable alternative to enhance efficient electricity delivery to the load centers across the country. Policy in South Africa is currently shifting to allow independent power producers to enter the market although there are still only a handful of projects underway. A good example is seen in George where an alternative source of electricity successfully makes use of the municipality’s grid. This project supports the idea that Independent Power Producers (IPP) can exist alongside the mainstream power generation utilities to provide a sustainable electricity supply that works for the country. These initiatives hold potential for collaboration between the public and private sectors to improve infrastructure networks in the underdeveloped rural communities. This event will highlight the policy and technical challenges that exist, bringing together the input of various stakeholders at a level that is intended to make inroads to facilitate the broader uptake of electricity wheeling within the country.