Western Cape Premier Alan Winde warned that South Africa remains in the grip of an energy crisis despite the pause in load-shedding, saying the country’s dependence on an aging fleet of coal-fired power stations continues to threaten long-term energy security.
Speaking at the Solar & Storage Live Cape Town 2025 conference and exhibition, Winde said the recent period of grid stability should be seen as a “window of opportunity” to accelerate investment in renewable energy, particularly solar generation and battery storage systems, Engineering News reported.
“The lights may be on for now, but the system is still fragile,” Winde said. “This is not the time to relax, it’s the time to double down on our clean-energy ambitions.”
He said Africa must move beyond simply adopting renewable power projects and begin localizing battery manufacturing and energy storage technologies to secure its energy future.
“Why are we not manufacturing batteries here in sub-Saharan Africa?” he asked. “We already have two battery assembly companies in the Western Cape and one in Gauteng, but they still import key components from China and Korea. That must change.”
Winde urged African governments to leverage the continent’s mineral wealth including lithium, manganese, nickel and cobalt to build industrial capacity that supports the clean-energy transition. Local manufacturing, he said, could create jobs, strengthen supply chains and reduce reliance on imports.
He added that developing a battery manufacturing base also presents a strategic opportunity for partners such as the European Union and the United States, which are seeking to diversify supply chains away from Asia.
The Western Cape has already positioned itself as a leader in South Africa’s energy transition, with nearly 820 megawatts of rooftop solar and more than 1.4 gigawatts of large-scale wind and solar power in operation. The province has set a goal of developing 5,700 megawatts of renewable capacity by 2035, aiming to become a net exporter of electricity within the next decade.
The Solar & Storage Live Cape Town 2025 event, held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, brought together energy innovators, policymakers and investors to discuss new opportunities in solar, battery and grid-resilience technologies.
