Contributing to Access to Household Electrification for Sustainable Development – A Partnership Between Eskom and the University of Cape Town

Chapter 1 introduces the topic of electrification, providing background information and an overview of the challenges, drivers and opportunities of electrification initiatives in general, and in South Africa in particular. Chapter 2 describes the energy planning and modelling work undertaken by Eskom and the Energy Research Institute (ERI), University of Cape Town. This is only part of more extensive work that has been undertaken by the two institutions in this area, and, due to the focus of this body of work, relates specifically to the residential sector. Chapter 3 presents the results of various pieces of work that assisted with the mapping out of the 6 technical parameters regarding electrification programmes, ensuring that more people are connected using improved cost-effective methods and management tools. Chapter 4 assesses some of the issues of financing relating to rural electrification in South Africa. Chapters 5 and 6 detail the specific socioeconomic impacts of electrification, especially in rural households in South Africa. These chapters explore ways of assessing the nonquantifiable benefits of these impacts. Chapters 7 and 8 highlight the issues related to demand-side management in electrified households, both as a support mechanism for the affordability of electricity and the necessity for monitoring and verification for such programmes. Chapter 9 concludes the document, with a discussion and a summary of the main findings and identification of major lessons learnt and possible future work that needs to be undertaken.