Includes bibliographical references (leaves 88-98).

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 105-111). / Since the early 1980's, a number of countries have been undertaking power sector reform. Very often the drivers for change included the need to reduce reliance on public finances and to obtain foreign capital, either to service loans, or for investing in new capacity. Latin American countries were the forerunners in this regard, with Chile amongst the first. The other main driver was to improve the financial and technical performance of the electricity industry. The rationale for this initiative could also be found in other factors, which are discussed as the countries are dealt with individually later in this document. One important aspect thereof is clearly the 'public benefit' implications of power sector reform, which are more pressing in developing countries. Until the 1980's, the electricity industry was viewed as a natural monopoly, and the concept of economies of scale reinforced this point of view. However, with dramatic technology improvements, it became possible to generate electricity competitively in smaller power plants, and thus alternatives to monopolistic industries were increasingly feasible. Competition is now possible in generation and supply. Developers other than the state can participate in the industry either as Independent Power Producers (IPPs) or as distributors and suppliers of electricity. According to the principle of competition, the introduction of new players into the market should lower electricity prices. This study investigates if this holds true in developing countries and whether power sector reform slows down or accelerates electrification access for the poor.

Bibliography: leaves 71-74. / This thesis explores issues of electrification in the rural areas of the Eastern Cape. First the set of issues explored are the rural areas electrification and general development background issues, taking the electrification from the early 1990s as the point of departure. Non-grid electrified, grid-electrified and non-electrified households in six Eastern Cape province areas were interviewed to gather information on their energy consumption. The research was undertaken to explore households' energy uses and to measure the impacts of having both grid and non-grid electricity. Socio-economic backgrounds of researched households are analysed to explore their contribution and influence to the types of energy sources used by households. By exploring socioeconomic backgrounds, a picture is given of conditions that drive rural households to use different types of energy. By comparing the electrified and non-electrified households. the thesis explores and explains how the transition and switching from one fuel to the other is made within these households. Lastly, there is also an analysis of the way different electricity supply options used in the rural areas affect the way people use energy. This includes discussion as to whether different electricity supply options are accepted better than others and the reasons for this. The conclusions drawn from the research done for this thesis shows that energy is a key component of rural development, yet energy demand (in terms of electricity use) in rural areas is low due to their underdeveloped nature. Even if modem energy is delivered to rural poor, households are often faced with very restricted income which severely limits energy use especially for thermal applications. These problems have to be addressed as a whole. In order to satisfy needs of people in rural areas. the provision of electricity, either grid or off-grid must hand in hand with integrated local development through which poverty as a whole may be addressed.

Bibliography: leaves 73-82. / In September 1984, Guy Roberts completed a report on the cost of wind energy in South Africa. His results showed that wind-energy in South Africa was uneconomical, but they suggest that at locations with higher wind speeds, the cost of wind power would approach the South African grid electricity cost. Knowing that locations with high annual average wind speeds would make the most suitable wind turbine sites, it was decided to investigate the wind enhancement, due to localized topography in such areas. Existing available wind data, together with previous studies on the South African wind energy potential suggested that the site worthy of investigation was in the vicinity of Cape Agulhas. A number of methods of ascertaining the wind potential over a given region were considered for investigating the area of interest. The two readily available techniques, physical and numerical modeling, were chosen to investigate the topographical wind enhancement. Previous work done on the siting of wind turbines using physical modeling was investigated prior to proceeding with the construction of and experimentation with a scale model. The utilization of two modeling techniques enabled the direct comparison of results.

Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references. / The rate at which the world is consuming energy is growing, and with climate change an immediate concern (Stern, 2006), it is incumbent for the global society to find alternate ways of fuelling human activity. Along with greater energy use, global development is also generating ever-greater quantities of waste. Landfill space is becoming increasingly scarce and the assimilative capacity of Earth is reaching its limits. Society's current approach to the production, consumption, and disposal of goods is likely unsustainable. The goal of this research was to assess the difference in cumulative energy demand (CED) and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for two waste management options: landfilling and recycling for the two materials of Construction and Demolition (C&D) rubble and container glass in the City of Cape Town (CCT) in order to determine which option has the lower climate impact.

Includes bibliographical references. / This thesis investigates the transportation of wind turbines in an emerging wind energy market with a focus on South Africa. The research goal is to understand how the transport and the wind energy sectors interact; as well as how turbine transportation can unfold as a barrier to wind farm development in South Africa. Turbine transportation was found to be a key part of the wind farm development process which has been hampered in South Africa by poor planning, the design of the renewable energy procurement program and low cooperation amongst industry participants. Barriers to wind farm development include a shortage of logistics equipment such as cranes and trailers, a shortage of skilled drivers and crane operators and several embedded bottlenecks in the abnormal load transportation process. These factors combined have resulted in a cost premium of 5 - 10% for the turbine transportation process in South Africa as compared to the cost in larger established wind energy markets. The study additionally finds that the wind energy industry could benefit from better coordination of transport projects through industry bodies such as SAWEA, as the transport system is unlikely to be altered in order to accommodate the needs of the wind energy industry.

The world’s energy consumption has been increasing dramatically in recent years. Economic and population growth are said to be the main drivers of this phenomenon. This change is held responsible for the increase in greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, the reduced energy security and the negative socio-economic implications, especially in developing countries. From a sectorial perspective, buildings are part of the large energy consumers, especially the residential sector. It is in this view that measures to reduce this sector’s energy demand has been largely recommended. One of these measures is promoting the deployment of energy efficient buildings combined with the use of energy efficient appliances. The aim of this study was to assess the economic feasibility associated with sustainable buildings with emphasis on the energy efficiency component. The study concentrated on residential buildings in Maputo, the capital city of Mozambique. The rationale behind the study lies in the need to uncover the main variables involved in the economic feasibility of adopting energy efficient practices within the building sector to help final users, policy makers and other interested groups to better understand and handle energy efficiency matters. A case study research design was used to achieve the main objective of this investigation. In this regard, a survey of households and interviews were conducted to establish the energy consumption pattern in Mozambique and its associated costs. The survey was conducted in the Kampfumo Municipality District of Maputo, and the interviews were conducted with civil engineering companies, electronic engineering, architects and building cost estimators. The questionnaires were answered by 233 households. Findings from the survey were used to perform a comparative analysis of the life cycle cost (LCC) of the buildings of the surveyed households with that of the proposed energy efficient designs, which incorporates buildings energy efficient elements and energy efficient appliances.

This study investigates the supply and demand side benefits and costs of low cost urban electrification in Mbayani Township in Blantyre City in Malawi. The low cost urban electrification program, which used compact ready boards to provide electricity to poor households in Mbayani, is the first such program in the country. The study therefore examines the strategies used to assess how they impact the service provider and the newly electrified households in terms of benefits and costs in order to draw lesson for similar programs in the future. Using an interview, the study first examines the financing and planning strategies, technologies used, tariff design and cost recovery strategies on the supply side. On users' side, the study uses a sample household survey to examine the effects of electrification on households' expenditures, fuel use and on the small and medium scale enterprises sector in Mbayani. The study conducted key informant interviews to assess community leaders' perception of the program. In addition, the study reviews the South African electrification program from which it draws lessons for Malawi. On the supply side, the strategies used reduced electrification costs and enabled the service provider to use infrastructure that was previously under-utilised. However, limited financing and planning which ignored user needs has negative implications on the program outcomes. Electricity tariffs were based on a monthly flat rate tariff, which is likely to negatively impact on the utility's revenue. However, at the scale that the program was carried out, this impact is negligible. The tariff nevertheless ensures cost recovery over a period of 5 years. While lack of data from the utility hindered detailed analysis of the supply side impacts, the study concluded that the strategies used yielded net costs for the utility. On the demand side, the study found that electrification strategies used had a positive impact on households' energy burden and budget control and that most households have switched to electricity for lighting, powering radios and partly for cooking. Major barriers in maximising benefits are high costs of electrical appliances and poor supply quality. The study recommends that future programs should use holistic participatory planning and should diversify sources of funding. Electrification strategies must also target small and medium enterprises and promote support for acquisition of better quality appliances.

As a resource, waste is abundantly available but largely underexploited in South Africa. Through waste to energy transformation, waste offers a variety of benefits that could address socio-economic and environmental challenges such as energy poverty, decreasing landfill space and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As South Africa becomes more urbanised, the urban population will rapidly increase and greater effort will be required to manage waste and provide energy services. Municipalities have the potential to deal with these challenges and realise many benefits by transforming and valorising waste through waste-to-energy (WtE) schemes. The most prevalent WtE technologies include biological (biochemical conversion) and thermal (thermo-chemical) based conversion technologies. Biological technologies mainly employ anaerobic digestion (AD) of waste to produce biogas which can be used directly or upgraded to other secondary energy carriers. Landfill gas recovery is also based on anaerobic breakdown of waste in landfills. Thermal treatment methods that produce heat and electricity include combustion, gasification, and pyrolysis. The most common form of WtE conversion technology is combustion or incineration of solid waste. In the developing world, AD is the most common technology especially for small scale and domestic applications. WtE technologies have been successfully deployed in many developed as well as some developing countries but there are limited initiatives in South Africa due to a number of barriers to the deployment of the technology. This study explored the barriers to wide scale deployment of WtE technologies in South Africa with a specific focus on adoption challenges faced by local municipalities specifically in the Western Cape Province. Four objectives were identified, namely: (1) investigate existing waste management methods, challenges experienced and current (proposed) interventions; (2) investigate local municipalities' efforts to implementing WtE schemes and the challenges encountered; (3) estimate the amount of energy that can be produced by local municipalities from waste and the extent to which the energy gap could be narrowed and; (4) identify the most appropriate WtE technology that local municipalities could implement. The research methodology comprised of a mixed methods approach which encompassed both qualitative and quantitative approaches, based on an exploratory design. A sample of five municipalities was identified and participated, from a population of 24 municipalities in the Western Cape Province. The criteria used to select the municipalities include (1) experiences, plans and efforts to adopt WtE (2) socio-demographic trends such as population growth and urbanisation rates as well as (3) proximity and ease of collecting data physically. Some challenges that were experienced relate to limited availability and accuracy of waste generation data and waste compositions, limited availability of municipal documents (such as feasibility studies and policy documents) and the inability of participants to answer all the relevant questions. The latter was mainly due to the different stages of WtE implementation in the different municipalities. Through the analysis, it was noted that socio-demographic trends such as population growth and in-migration increased between the 2001 and 2011 period, which also indicated an increase in the waste generated. Although local municipalities were implementing waste initiatives such as recycling and composting, none had physically implemented any WtE schemes. However, the municipalities were exploring the technologies and were at different stages, mainly at the feasibility stage. The challenges deterring municipalities from adopting WtE include: 1. Unsuitable waste feedstock for energy generation and poor data on waste generation and composition for investment decision making, 2. Restrictions on independent power producers (IPPs) of electricity to directly supply power to municipalities as well as timeous wheeling agreements (the monopoly of Eskom) 3. Poor synchronisation of policies (energy and waste policies do not provide a solid platform for establishing WtE industries), 4. Poor integration of WtE into waste management planning, 5. Limited knowledge of technologies by decision makers and lack of political will; 6. Low landfill tariffs, 7. Limited access to capital to invest in technologies and high investment costs depending on the type of technology, 8. Lack of skills to implement technologies, 9. Limited awareness of the technologies and their benefits and opposition from the public for various reasons including emissions of hazardous gases, and 10. Delays in processing environmental and legal applications.

With the potential for shale gas extraction in the Karoo region of South Africa, every effort must be undertaken to understand what the effects this transformative industry may have. This paper attempts to explore what effects the industry may have on "small" Karoo towns by creating a demographic and economic baseline for three towns in the region and compares this with a shale gas extraction future. This was grounded in sociological research based on the "Boomtown Model", which attempts to understand the effects extractive industries have on small towns. The thesis finds that small Karoo towns are particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of the Boomtown Model, in light of their current profile which shows the rural economy has been declining for many years, which is coupled with a number of social issues that affect towns such as alcohol abuse and inter-personal violence. This paper concludes that a new shale gas industry will not benefit the residents of the Karoo unless a suitable policy framework is in place that ensures long term beneficiation and mitigates the environmental costs.