Name: South Africa’s tough plan to ditch coal power | DW News
Uploaded: 2026-02-06T16:56:57.000Z
Duration: 6 min 26 s
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The remains of one of the biggest power plants in South Africa's coal Mpumalanga.

Basic passive voice

Komati Power Station reached the end of its life cycle and was shut in 2022.

Adverbs of degree

They took our pride because it's not just about the employment and getting your salary, but

Komati Power station will be the first of many to close.

South Africa is one of the most coal dependent countries in the world.

But within the next two decades it wants to phase out coal.

Carlos Vilanculo worked as a welder at the power station and was among the first people to be let go.

Reason being is that it was not communicated proper because if they did, we could have made some other means to mitigate everything and to be prepared.

But if something just comes and surprise you, it becomes a problem.

At its peak, the station provided jobs to about 3,000 people.

By 2050, 12 of the country's 14 power stations are meant to shut down.

Many see Komati as a warning for the economic pain of a coal phaseout.

People have looked at it as a sort of test case of how will this transition work in practice.

And I'm afraid as government we didn't cover ourselves in glory.

South Africa became the first country in the global south to join an international partnership to phase out coal.

At the COP summit in 2021, it committed to a so called just energy transition, meaning pivoting away from fossil fuels without destroying the livelihoods that depend on them.

International partners like Germany, France and the UK pledged more than US$11 billion in support.

If South Africa gets it right, it could become a blueprint for other countries in the global south that committed to such a transition.

A crucial step to combatting the climate crisis.

But the country is facing a big challenge.

Its unemployment rate has soared in the past decades.

This a third of the working population is out of a job.

In addition, South Africa ranks as the country with the highest income inequality in the world.

So the big concern is that people that are most vulnerable in this transition.

Crispian Olver advises the government on how to achieve a just transition.

Workers that are employed in one or another of these high emitting sectors or in the coal value chain.

These are the people that carry the greatest amount of risk in this transition because they stand to lose their livelihoods.

Over 100,000 workers are employed in coal directly in Mpumalanga Province.

Almost half a million jobs are at risk because of the planned phase out.

In Komati that risk of already became reality.

So many things, people, they are struggling, they don't have job people, they are hungry, they are suffering.

Most of them, they are suffering because they are not working.

They told us that they will come back with the new contractors, with the new solar, they just energy transaction but we are still waiting for that.

As South Africa is winding down, coal jobs in its renewable sector are growing.

But until now, the country's largest wind farms have been built in the Western Cape.

Its solar farms in the north across the country from the coal belt in Pumalanga.

When you worked at the power station, it's difficult for you to transition into other job opportunities.

When Komati Power station was shut down, permanent staff were offered alternative jobs elsewhere.

But most workers like Carlos were contractors and left without a job.

Decades of mining have degraded the soil in South Africa's coal belt, meaning people can't easily switch to jobs in agriculture like in other regions.

Carlos is now making ends meet by producing bricks.

You've got to, in anticipation of these sectoral declines in coal and high emitting sectors, you've got to proactively seek to invest in and grow the new economic sectors.

But all of that takes is going to take active intervention and active planning and we've been struggling to get government to take this seriously enough.

Inside the Komati power station, the mood is more hopeful.

One year after it was shut, the power plant finally received a loan worth over $400 million from the world Bank.

Now its general manager, Tevan Pillai is working on turning Komati's story of failure into one of success.

Look, there's been quite a few lessons that have been learned from Komati side and the one key thing we keep on talking about is starting early.

The World bank loan is meant to transform Komati into a hub for solar and battery power within the next years.

In addition, the few hundred staff that remain are experimenting with aquaponics, looking for a way to grow vegetables in the barren soil.

Meanwhile, parts of the empty power station have turned into classrooms, training young people to become welders.

This time for solar parks rather than coal plants.

Komati will only be able to offer a fraction of these students a job in the future.

Solar parks require much fewer workers than coal plants.

They need to commit to making that difference.

But there is life that you can create from the ground.

And this is I mean the lesson that Komati is teaching the world today.

And come a year's time, we will show something tangible to say that there is still life.

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South Africa’s tough plan to ditch coal power | DW News

struggle

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