Minister Dipuo Peters, Minister of Energy

Only a few days after the opening of Parliament next year, Minister Dipuo Peters will waste no time in highlighting the Department of Energy’s 2010 goals, milestones, challenges and plans for the crucial year ahead for South Africa. The Honourable Minister means business and will be speaking and engaging with her peers from other African ministries, neighbouring utilities, the private sector, potential investors and South African municipalities, at the Power Indaba and African Utility Week conference and exhibition to be held at the ICC in Durban from 22-25 February 2010.

The Minister’s top priority remains to ensure access to electricity by the poorer communities – a goal she is passionate about and which is sure rub off on all the South African utilities and municipalities in order for them to stay on course during 2010, despite the possible distraction that the World Cup might provide.

The Minister recently drove the approval of the energy feed-tariff (Refit), which will create   incentives to the increased implementation of renewable energy and ultimately enabling a diverse energy mix. She has remained realistic about the capacity challenges facing South Africa and will be appealing to the industry to assist in improving the mindset of consumers on energy efficiency measures in order to meet the ambitious targets.  Says Minister Peters: “These targets and the diversification of the energy mix can only be met if all stakeholders within the energy sector are working together, it cannot be done by legislation alone.”

Minister Dipou Peters will be lobbying, informing and encouraging the sector and neighbouring countries for assistance, dedication and co-operation during the 2010 World Cup as this will be a challenging time for South Africa’s under-resourced electricity infrastructure.  

If the initial signs are correct, 2010 will be a year of global economic upturn and there will be no stopping the Minister implementing the Department of Energy’s ambitious five year road map.

African Utility Week/Power Indaba unites 2000 senior power industry executives and decision makers from over 40 countries, representing the key stakeholders from the entire power utility eco-system, focusing on power infrastructure investment, renewable energy and new industry technologies.