South Africa struggles to fund vital green energy grid upgrade

Since elections in May that brought a coalition government to power, there has been a shift in policy towards renewables, following years of bureaucratic delays and mixed messages about South Africa’s readiness to phase out coal, which supplies 80% of its energy needs.

But as private suppliers — including Mainstream Renewable (owned by Aker Horizons AKH.OL), EDF Renewables EDF.PA and Acciona SA ANE.MC — prepare to transform the sector, many of them face another problem: how to get electricity from sunny and windy outposts to energy-hungry urban centers.