India and South Africa are both navigating one of the toughest challenges of the 21st century: shifting their electricity systems away from ageing coal-fired power stations while ensuring people still have reliable, affordable energy.
South Africa generates about 74% of its electricity from coal, one of the highest shares in the world. Electricity plants are ageing, and maintenance is overdue. The electricity sector is highly centralised and dominated by the state-owned energy provider, Eskom. These factors have led to power cuts in the past.
Coal accounts for about 70% of India’s electricity generation. However, India has managed faster improvements in electricity access and renewable energy integration.
Both countries have national grids that are not very reliable, and don’t have enough public funds to move quickly into green (renewable) energy.
We are engineering academics who research the transition to green energy. Our study identified the strengths and weaknesses in both countries’ approaches.
We found lessons that could accelerate progress in both countries. South Africa could learn from India to boost local manufacturing of renewable energy systems, and India could learn from South Africa’s transparent renewable procurement and community-benefit models.
How India expanded electricity access while scaling up green energy
Over the past decade, India has implemented a carefully sequenced set of energy policies that linked rural electrification with renewable energy and reforms to agriculture. New rural power lines enabled more solar projects, and cleaner farm electricity reduced pressure on the national electricity grid.
As a result, India moved from chronic electricity shortages to near-universal access to electricity, despite having a massive population and vast rural areas. About 25%-30% of India’s electricity now comes from renewable energy – enough to power 70 million to 80 million Indian homes each year.
This growth has been driven by huge solar farms, rooftop solar installations, and hybrid solar-wind projects. India has attracted billions of dollars in private-sector investment. The country has a national policy framework that makes it easier for energy companies to operate and promotes the connection of clean energy to the national grid.
India has also made tremendous progress in energy efficiency by reducing its energy consumption by around 3.5%. It aims to reduce its carbon emissions by a further 10%.
South Africa’s progress and bottlenecks
South Africa has made impressive strides in renewable energy procurement. The Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme is a competitive tender process designed to facilitate private sector investment into renewable energy that can feed into the national grid.
Private energy companies have invested R256 billion (US$17.3 billion) in renewables. But they still supply less than 10% of South Africa’s power. Further expansion is held back because the grid can’t accommodate more energy in certain areas. Slow, centralised decision-making, combined with delayed bidding processes, delays new projects.
In South Africa, remote and low-income communities still rely on costly or informal energy sources: paraffin, diesel generators, firewood, and illegal grid connections.
The transition must balance environmental goals with energy supply stability. There are 91,000 coal workers and communities who earn a living working near coal mines and coal-fired power stations.
What South Africa can learn from India
Several lessons emerge from India’s experience:
1.) Instead of treating rural development, electricity grid upgrades, and buying renewable energy as three separate tasks, South Africa should manage them together so that improvements in one area benefit the other areas.
2.) South Africa needs a dedicated energy-efficiency institution like India’s Bureau of Energy Efficiency. Such a body would set rules to cut energy waste. It could strengthen appliance and building standards, run national awareness campaigns on energy savings and cost reductions, and support industries through audits and best-practice guidance.
3.) India’s federal system allowed states to create energy systems that suit local needs. South Africa has a central government system. It could benefit from giving provinces and local governments more power to accelerate their own renewable projects and community-level initiatives.
4.) India’s Production-Linked Incentives and Make in India policies support strong domestic solar and battery manufacturing. South Africa, by contrast, still imports most of its solar panels, inverters, and battery-storage components.
What India can learn from South Africa
South Africa offers India valuable insights as well:
1.) South Africa’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme is a great global model for fair and transparent procurement. It uses clear bidding rules, has independent evaluation panels, and publicly discloses winning prices.
2.) This programme also ensures that some of the profits from renewable energy projects go to community trusts. Many trusts hold about 8%-12% of the shares in their local green energy initiatives. However, communities don’t always benefit as much as they should if their shares are financed by debt and dividends spent on repaying loans. India could adopt an improved community model that offers real benefits.
What needs to happen next
Our study found that coal will remain part of both countries’ energy systems for some time. But coal should be used sensibly. For example, coal plants must be made cleaner, and both countries should avoid new coal construction except where absolutely unavoidable.
Renewable energy, battery storage, and grid upgrades must happen. This deployment will gradually reduce dependence on coal.
India and South Africa both have ambitious climate goals and face similar pressures to develop. They can transition to cleaner energy quickly without making electricity less reliable, more expensive, or less fair. They can learn from each other through Brics (the intergovernmental organisation they belong to), the G20, and direct bilateral partnerships.
South Africa’s 2025 G20 presidency endorsed investing more quickly in renewable energy. It also advocated for working together across countries to link and improve electricity grids. But it missed an opportunity to make explicit, stronger promises to cut back on coal, oil, and gas.
Sustainable transitions are not achieved by abandoning old systems overnight. Transforming them carefully, responsibly and inclusively is the way to go.
- is an Associate Professor in Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering and Director of the Solar Thermal Energy Research Group, Stellenbosch University
- is an Associate Professor (Extraordinary) in the Solar Thermal Energy Research Group, Department of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering, Stellenbosch University
- This article first appeared in The Conversation
