LPG, a way for South Africans to mitigate Eskom’s exorbitant tariffs

Image credit: Ayesha Firdaus on Unsplash

Many hard-pressed consumers have had to endure sharp increases in electricity prices over the years.

Between 2007 and 2017, the average tariff increased by 333% and continued to rise to 450% by 2022, according to data released by the South African Reserve Bank.

A viable alternative

Nokwanele Qonde, founder and managing director of Black and women-owned petrochemicals company, Wasaa Group, says the data released by StatsSA’s General Household Survey titled: The State of South African Households in 2023, which recorded a noticeable increase in household usage of LPG from 2.2% to 6.8%, is indicative of the growing public acknowledgement of LPG as a cost-effective, clean and reliable energy source and a viable alternative for residential energy intensive applications such as heating and cooking.

“The increasing penetration of LPG in residential use is encouraging and welcome news for the industry and will go a long way towards alleviating pressure on the national grid.

“The steady increase in residential penetration of LPG emboldens us to step on the gas and build on this momentum to deepen penetration of LPG adoption not only for the benefit of the industry, but to contribute meaningfully to the attainment of a developmental state, create feasible pathways for entrepreneurship in the LPG economy while substantially reducing our carbon emissions,” says Qonde.

To that end, Qonde has appealed to the government to consider subsidising LPG to make it more accessible to millions of poor households across the country.

“Despite the commendable strides that the government has made to roll out electricity to many households since 1994, many poor and rural communities still lack access to electricity, forcing them to use polluting energy sources such as firewood and paraffin for cooking and space heating.

“Government should consider subsidising LPG prices or providing some incentives for poor households as part of the Free Basic Energy programme.

“This will go a long way towards providing much-needed respite to struggling consumers who are buckling under the strain of the rising cost of living and consecutive electricity tariff increases,” says Qonde.

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The report compiled by StatsSA has further found nationally, 29,0% of households now utilise LPG as an energy source and that gas usage is more prevalent in the Western Cape (46,0%) and Gauteng (36,3%).

This increase in LPG and gas usage is reflected in increased household ownership of gas stoves and plates, which grew from 19% in 2022 to 30,1% in 2023, the report found.

“South Africa also has the necessary LPG import infrastructure in place.

“We need to leverage these capabilities to mitigate against the energy challenges we face by implementing policy adjustments that can give impetus to a more intensified and ubiquitous penetration of LPG.

“We have been hard at work laying the necessary foundations to accelerate the advancement of the LPG sector in South Africa, through, for example, our acquisition of bp Southern Africa’s East London liquid fuel import terminal via our subsidiary, Wassa Terminals.

“This historic acquisition enables us to, among others, develop an LPG facility and leverage and upgrade an existing LPG infrastructure to augment our capacity and cater to LPG demand in South Africa and across the region,” she concludes.