‘Energy mix way to keep lights on’

Students give solutions in speech competition

Future economists believe energy mix is the way to go for the ailing Eskom, and that may help make load shedding a thing of the past.

This was a common theme yesterday as 20 students who made it to the finals of the Nedbank and Old Mutual budget speech competition gave presentations for the judges at Crystal Tower hotel in Cape Town.

The competition attracts entries from visionary economic students across the country. Khayelihle Madlopha, 23, an undergraduate economist and banking student from University of Zululand, whose team impressed the judges with their presentation on what is the appropriate energy mix for the country in the short, medium and long term.

“We need renewable energy or nuclear energy which produces 10 times more but it is very expensive to buy and maintain. At the moment Eskom uses mostly coal to produce energy. Coal cannot reproduce itself and we have limited reserves of coal,” Madlopha said.

He said the country needed to invest more into renewable energy, including subsidising the independent power producers (IPPs)… so as to have the mix of energy.

“We will have to use nuclear energy for long-term planning because the country is already facing fiscal constraints at the moments. So in the long run we will be able to stabilise our finances,” Madlopha said. One of the judges, Zamantungwa Khumalo, said in choosing the winners they had to weigh how difficult the topic was and the structure of presentation by the finalist. The competition which was launched in 1972, offers generous cash prizes and the top three winners stand to win R150,00, R100,000, and R50,000 respectively.

The winners will be announced today by minister of finance Tito Mboweni after his budget speech. Nedbank group chief executive Mike Brown said the budget competition speaks directly to the bank’s purpose of using their financial expertise to do good for individuals, families, businesses and society. “The youth in South Africa are key to unlocking the country’s prosperity and Nedbank is constantly looking at ways of giving the youth an active voice as our future thought leaders.

“Just this week Nedbank launched its inaugural Young Talent Advisory Forum, which will be infusing new and different ideas into the exco conversation and identifying opportunities that will enable Nedbank to grow in this competitive environment,” Brown said

‘ ‘ Coal cannot reproduce itself and we have limited reserves of it