Textbox 1: MFMA clause on infrastructure projects
6.4 Solution using goal programming
6.5.2 Informal urban settlements
As already mentioned in Chapter 2, energy consumption patterns in informal settlements mirror those in rural areas Nabudere (2006). Nabudere (2006) also added that the term rural area should not be associated with physical geographical localities as doing so shrouds the understanding of poverty and inequality in the country. This implies that policy interventions aimed at reducing energy poverty among the poor should be limited to isolated rural villages and be extended to informal urban settlements. A separate scenario exploring feasible energy supply options for informal urban areas was also incorporated into the Chebychev GP model.
An informal urban area is defined as an illegal settlement lacking one or more of the following conditions: access to energy, water, sanitation, sufficient living area, housing durability and security of tenure, as adopted in the SDG 11.
This external scenario was also elicited as part of the second round of the strategic dialogues, which were conducted with the panel of experts and community representatives. The panel of experts and community representatives were asked the question “Do you agree with the hypothesis that energy consumption patterns in informal settlements mirror those in rural areas and policies aimed at reducing energy and poverty, in general, should not discriminate communities living in informal urban settlements?”. Feedback was collected, collated and
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125 reviewed iteratively with the panel of experts. The experts agreed on pursuing the informal urban settlement scenario only.
Informal urban settlements GP model results
The applied GP formulation results for the informal urban settlements scenario showed that the optimal solution would result in an installed capacity of 19.7 TJ for a representative community comprised of 500 households. This implies an installed capacity of 39.5 GJ per household. Figure 27 presents a breakdown of the installed capacities of different energy supply technologies based on the augmented Chebychev GP formulation for the informal urban settlements scenario.
The resulting energy mix comprised a micro-grid powered by solar PV (33.9%) leveraged by bioethanol fuel (23%, firewood (20.8%), LPG (19.9%) and kerosene (2.4%). This result was explained by the projected low life cycle costs associated with solar PV, bioethanol and LPG fuels compared with solar with storage. As argued earlier, the high lifecycle cost associated with the energy storage technologies would still render the technology uncompetitive when compared with comparable technologies.
Figure 27: Summary of the energy mix (informal urban area, installed capacity in GJ)
Source: MOLP Model
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126 In terms of usage, results obtained from the study indicate that solar PV and LPG would be used for meeting electrical power needs, including refrigeration, while a combination of bioethanol, firewood, LPG and kerosene would be used for cooking. The choice between bioethanol and LPG for cooking would be influenced largely by the economic and supply chain topographies of where these technologies would be deployed.
According to the results of the analysis, in the absence of grid-based electricity, owing to challenges associated with extending the grid to informal urban settlements, solar PV was found to be the only feasible option for supplying micro-grid to power electrical appliances for low-income households living in these areas. The results also confirm the energy ladder postulate that as household income rises, they tend to replace rudimentary energy with modern energy sources. The opposite was confirmed to be equally true. This argument is confirmed by the return of kerosene in the energy mix under the pessimistic scenario. The results indicated that faced with limitations and as incomes shrink and energy demand falls, poor households revert to low-cost energy sources such as kerosene and firewood. This finding also confirms what has been observed in other studies (Dube et al., 2020; Thomson Reuters Foundation, 2021).
According to Dube et al. (2020), weak infrastructure, erratic supply, maintenance issues and the unaffordable cost of electricity in the face of unemployment and low incomes in Zimbabwe resulted in increased use of firewood, leading to deforestation. Similarly, and more recently, in early 2021, dwindling family budgets due to the global coronavirus pandemic sparked a surge in firewood use in informal urban settlements in Kenya in 2021, according to a report by Thomson Reuters Foundation (Thomson Reuters Foundation, 2021). As already mentioned, the situation can be improved by introducing bioethanol fuel into the mix through government- supported programmes. This can be supplemented by sustainable firewood extraction and utilisation in the short term.
In terms of policy implications, the results of the study showed that, indeed, energy consumption patterns in these areas mirror those in rural areas. This finding means that, first, energy planners in South Africa should not limit the term “rural area” to physical geographical localities. Instead, the definition should be extended to include the shanty towns and informal urban areas. Secondly, the findings of this study also imply that when designing intervention programmes aimed at benefiting poor rural households, these initiatives should also include solutions for underprivileged homes located in informal urban settlements. Recent data from the United Nations Human Settlements Programme show that as of 2018, approximately 25.6
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127 million South Africans live in slums across the country (World Bank Group, 2021). These slums are concentrated in Gauteng, the Western Cape, North-West and the Eastern Cape. Exhibit 2 shows a typical informal urban dwelling in South Africa.
Exhibit 2: Informal settlements in South Africa
Source: Flickr (2021)
The augmented Chebychev GP model developed for the study was useful under differing circumstances. Figure 28 presents a side-by-side comparison of the installed capacities (Y variables) for isolated rural areas and the informal urban areas scenarios. Notable differences between the two circumstances are the presence of firewood under the informal urban area scenario and the absence of wind under the same scenario. Solar is also more pronounced under the informal urban area scenario. Under the isolated rural area scenario, users of the model should include all energy supply technologies. Under the informal urban settlements scenario, users of the model should exclude certain technologies such as wind and grid electricity, given the technical and regulatory limitations placed on deploying such technologies.
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128 Figure 28: Comparison of the installed capacities (installed capacity in GJ)
Isolated rural area Urban area slum
Source: MOLP Model
In cases where the ban on the connection of informal households to the national grid is lifted, the informal urban area scenario should then also include grid electricity, albeit with higher energy demand than the isolated rural areas scenarios. Additionally, with an ever-increasing informal urban area population and the expansion of informal settlements in South Africa, energy planners would need to consider this increasing population when finding energy access solutions using the developed model.