The Central Energy Fund (CEF) yesterday called for women to step up to the plate, collaborate and look at business opportunities available via its R67 billion projects pipeline, especially those who owned small companies.
The CEF – which contributes to the security of energy supply of South Africa and the region through exploration, acquisition, development, marketing and strategic partnership – yesterday hosted a networking session in Johannesburg, titled, “Fuelling the future: women in the energy sector”.
Ayanda Noah, the chairperson of the CEF, said women often failed to take up opportunities in the energy sector due to mental barriers and the lack of confidence, but one must just say, “I’m going to go and apply”.
Opportunities were advertised on the supply side and not just in the facility and management space.
Noah spoke about South Africa’s largest renewable energy project, Redstone, being an opportunity. ACWA Power, one of the leading Saudi-based power generation technologies providers, in 2018 signed a contract with the CEF to build it. The project had another 12 months or so to go and before it was completed, but “here’s an opportunity” for women to partake in.
Noah also encouraged women to believe in themselves in business.
“So you’ve got to start at the top and they say the fish rots from the head, you got to start at the top and make the changes there. And by the way, when you are there, women in those roles, then you’ve got to start looking for opportunities in your own departments so that you can afford to also rise and we must support within to support for mentorship,” Noah said.
Panel members at the CEF also urged women to look for opportunities in the R1.21bn Agro Energy Fund, launched last month by the Land Bank and the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development, which aims to finance alternative energy solutions, particularly focusing on energy-intensive agricultural activities like irrigation, intensive agricultural production systems, and on-farm cold chain operations.
It was also revealed that the Industrial Development Corporation had some fund pertaining to energy in the works that will be announced in due course.
Refilwe Buthelezi, the president of the Engineering Council of South Africa, said the Engineering Council of South Africa had 50 000 registered professionals consisting of engineers, technologists, technicians – with only 14% of women representation.
“So if you look at the pipeline in the engineering space professionals, we can see that we are not really in a good position to say we’ve got enough females in the space of professional engineering. And then we expand into the energy sector, which obviously takes more than just engineers, that is the stance that then you are looking at.
“We need people who advocate for education, who will assist in promotion of STEM subjects, woman to go out there and lead by example, hold on to some students, adopt some students and assist them in navigating the sector. The girls at schools are not exposed to what they should be at the moment. It is our duty to do that,” Buthelezi said.
Nosizwe Nokwe-Macamo, the chairperson of Raise Africa Investments and advisory board member of Genesis Energy and the African Energy Chamber, said: “Currently, we’re going through a transition to the energy transition. And basically that offers an opportunity.
“So what is required is what you should ask, is the knowledge, sharing about opportunities that exist. The issue of collaborating across the different networks of women, across the different methods in communities to be able to take advantage of those opportunities and get into the value chain, either as a producer of energy or as a supplier of the implemented competence. So there’s a new revolution that’s coming in from an energy perspective where we can actually, so I’m very excited about it.”
BUSINESS REPORT