South African Electicity and Energy Minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has highlighted the current global upheavals and what they mean for African energy in his welcoming address at Africa Energy Indaba 2026, at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, on Tuesday.

"The global order, as we have known it for decades, is recalibrating in real time," he pointed out. "Energy sits at the epicentre of this reordering. Electricity has become sovereignty expressed in electrons."

Energy was a matter of trade, sovereignty, power – and pressure. And it was subject to supply disruptions.

In parallel, critical minerals had become central to international politics. Africa was not peripheral, in this regard. It was, in fact, central, thanks to its' critical and energy mineral resources. 

"Yet history urges vigilance," he cautioned. Centrality regarding these minerals did not guarantee wealth. Africa had long exported resources and imported manufactured goods. Africa had to ensure that the global green energy transition did not replicate the past and recreate developmental asymmetries. 

Africa's energy transition required cooperation and coordination across regions and energy pools, including the harmonisation of regulations. Energy cooperation and trade integration had to move together. 

Energy infrastructure, he noted, became the enabling factor for industrial zones. Green industrialisation needed reliable and affordable electricity at scale.

"Minerals without energy do not become industry," he stressed. "The minerals value chain requires the industrialisation of the electricity supply chain itself."

Africa had to localise the production of transformers, generators, transmission lines and the other key elements of electrical infrastructure. "Transmission has emerged as the defining constraint, and the defining opportunity, of the [energy] transition," he affirmed.

Energy justice must be understood not as a slogan but as a practical programme, rooted in industrialisation and regional cooperation, to unlock scale and enable cross-border industrial corridors. "Energy justice is continental integration made operational!"

An issue was the cost of capital for African projects. "The cost of capital shapes the cost of power." Risk premiums put on African projects drove up the cost of capital for these projects. Yet often these risk premiums were uncalled for. This had to be addressed.

"Energy security is not accidental, it is designed," he asserted. He cited South Africa's Integrated Resource Plan 2025 as an example. "Forward planning reduces uncertainty and strengthens investor confidence."

"Africa possesses unparalleled renewable [energy] potential," he summed up. The continent could become a centre of green industrialisation.