Africa stands at the centre of the global energy transition at a time when the global order faces evolution and recalibration.
This is according to Electricity and Energy Minister, Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, who addressed the Africa Energy Indaba, which kicked off at the Cape Town International Convention Centre on Tuesday.
The Minister highlighted that the gathering comes at a “moment of profound historical consequence” with rising geopolitical tensions, intensifying conflicts around the world, and a global energy transition underway.
“The global order, as we have known it for decades, is not merely evolving; it is being recalibrated in real time.
“The energy system that fuelled successive industrial revolutions is undergoing structural transformation. Supply chains are being reorganised under the pressure of strategic rivalry.
“Industrial policy has returned as a central instrument of statecraft, with major economies deploying unprecedented subsidy regimes to secure supply chains, protect domestic manufacturing and reposition themselves within emerging clean technology value chains,” Ramokgopa said.
Africa, with its critical minerals, stands as a key actor in the global transition.
“Energy now sits at the epicentre of this global reordering. Energy has become the silent architecture of global power. In this reconfigured world, Africa is not a peripheral actor. Africa is a structural anchor in the global transition.
“Without African platinum group metals, the hydrogen economy cannot achieve scale. Without African cobalt, manganese and copper, the battery revolution falters. Without African vanadium, long-duration storage remains constrained. Without African uranium, the renewed global interest in nuclear energy cannot advance at pace.
“The transition to net zero is materially dependent on Africa,” the minister stated.
Ramokgopa warned that “history urges vigilance” even as the new structural reality places the continent at the centre of “one of the most consequential economic transformations of our time”.
“Structural centrality does not automatically yield structural prosperity. For generations, Africa supplied the raw materials of industrial revolutions elsewhere, while value addition remained beyond our shores. We exported resources and imported finished goods. We bore environmental costs and absorbed volatility while others consolidated industrial advantage.
“Today, as industrial policy once again shapes global competition, Africa must define its own trajectory within this reconfiguration. We must ensure that the global transition does not replicate historical asymmetries under a new technological banner,” he emphasised.
The minister noted that while Africa’s mineral wealth “places us at the centre of the global transition”, minerals will not guarantee transformation.
“Beneficiation is not rhetoric; it is system design. A battery precursor facility cannot operate on an intermittent supply. Green steel production depends on stable hydrogen and firm baseload capacity. Electrolysers require grid resilience and advanced manufacturing demands quality, predictability and scale.
“Industrial transformation rests on the reliability, affordability and depth of our electricity systems. Minerals without energy do not become industry; industry without transmission does not become exports; exports without infrastructure do not become prosperity.
“If we are to move from quarry to factory, from pit to product, electricity becomes the decisive variable. Industrialising the minerals value chain requires industrialising the energy value chain itself. We must develop manufacturing capacity in transformers, conductors, cables, renewable components and storage systems,” he said.
He also called for investment in local engineering capabilities, technical training institutions and research partnerships that embed technological competence within Africa's economies.
Energy infrastructure development is also key and must be seen as “industrial policy in action”.
“Each transmission line built, each substation expanded and each renewable facility commissioned should reinforce domestic capacity, skills transfer and enterprise development.
“Africa possesses unparalleled renewable potential, critical mineral wealth and a demographic dividend that positions it uniquely within the global energy transition. If aligned with integration, disciplined planning and fair financing, our continent can emerge not only as a supplier of materials, but as a producer of clean technologies, a centre of green industrialisation and a continent that defines its own developmental trajectory,” Ramokgopa added.
Bringing his address to a close, the minister issued a rallying call for Africa to move from rhetoric to reality.
“Let this Indaba serve as a platform where ambition is translated into execution, where continental priorities are structured into bankable pipelines and where Africa’s energy future is shaped with clarity and confidence.
“The African century will not be proclaimed; it will be constructed through planning, financed through discipline, wired through transmission, industrialised through policy and secured through unity.
“And it will be powered by us,” Ramokgopa concluded. – SAnews.gov.za
