Andre Nepgen’s Post

Transcript

What inspired Discovery Green? It's different. It's new, it's exciting and it's got purpose. I think a lot of people don't actually actually know that, but we've been, we've been working on this for five years. I don't know that's that's roughly a rule of thumb, how long it takes to convince the financial services company that it's time to get into energy. Our original focus is purely on emissions. You know, how can we change the carbon footprint of South Africa, which is quite a dirty by international companies, quite a dirty economy on that. It's just the nature of the. Calling in our history around that and and how can we change that, we started an issue looking at individual behavior. You know what you and me and everyone else are doing in terms of it. And one thing we quickly realized though is that the big elephant in the room, the the low hanging fruit is electricity on there and we'll look at ways in ways in which we can change that. Now you can ask people to use less electricity only up to a point I think that's the South Africans we almost had to our necks in terms of reducing electricity consumption. So you know we thought you know what is the the. Way to change electricity on that and we thought they would wait to change it. A source at the source. So many years ago we were into art to see this and could we go and procure renewable energy or get renewable energy Wheeling ourselves as everyone else does We went out to market on on a on a proposal process. We got, we got a number of proposals in it and we realized two things really through this process. One is at that time, you know there were a lot of opportunists in the market. So we've got 8 proposals, 6 / 8 involved, two people are backing your friends, farm and escom land. And those that actually were legitimate, you know, not that wouldn't say legitimate, but like companies that we would trust and believe in and want to invest and the products that were offered there were just signing up, we didn't think was. Suited, well suited to mines that were suited to smelters, it was suited to you know the Cecils link was the Sabinius, the S 30 Twos of the world not discovery and its clients and the hospitals and the gems and the and the pharmacies wasn't suited for them And and hence we started to take a deeper look at it which took us on an interesting journey. You know originally started with us things and should we just do this for our closest vitality and health partners. Realises actually this is something better for South Africa, so my. And in September, I think it was September, we open it up to the to the market. We actually went public on that and there was an exciting journey from the north. What can companies do today to move towards renewable energy and what options are available? I think that the first question really is why are companies moving towards renewable energy. I think the answer is really the the three primary reasons for that. The first one is emissions and that is a big, big driver. Companies are reporting on their missions. You know other publicly or at least internally setting targets a lot of companies are said carbon neutrality goals and this is an important measure and I think internationally if you want to compete internationally or if you want to attract investment in the future this is going to be an important factor for your business an important measure your missions to get that done and companies are companies are focusing on that and of course renewable energy is is the easiest of the first step the first hurdle the first obstacle to tackle really a part of that majority of companies that we. That we work with and deal with. We found that that you know 80% of the emissions if you think about carbon neutrality come from electricity consumption. So number of reasons for this one is in South Africa where the dirtiest electricity in the world twice the global media which is which is quite terrifying and and you know that is means we've got what a great opportunity to by switching over to renewables to to reduce that footprint and never have a big impact. So I think companies are are focused on emissions and that's and that's why they're looking at renewables the second one. Been a very important one as well is, is the cost of electricity in South Africa. So when the electricity is is flying it's generally increases every year well above inflation. Over the last 10 years it's been it's been CPR plus five over the last five CPR +8. So there's a there's a high increase for companies to take in terms of their budget and you know especially the large users of electricity it's becoming, it's becoming expensive on that and of course when the electricity is not flowing there's always you know diesel costs which are very, very expensive. As well. So so people are taking electricity costs a lot more more seriously and I think that's a big factor while people are considering it and the loss factor which is actually quite related to the second is, is load shedding. You know renewable energy generation with another on saddle orphan connected to you know it's a it's a potential meter grant for load shedding. It's not a perfect solution you know because you still reliant on the sun shining and for you to to do that and they're being enough of it. But it is a way for companies to to ensure that they continue to operate during these during these times. The question really is, is what our company is doing about it. What are they? How are they approaching renewable energy? What solutions are they deploying? What actions are they taking? I think there's again you know 3 three ways in which companies are approaching and the first one and this is probably the most common one that companies are considering is is called onsite generation or you might know as rooftop solar simple putting panels on your rooftop on that I mean it's a it's a it's a solution to market that is really taking off and I do think it's it's really got a place in South Africa. We do have good sign on there. The problem though what we find is that that it often is not enough and discovery we we put panels on our roof. That a lot of panels on the roof and we achieved a wonderful 3% of our energy consumption. So you know we might be in the extreme case but I think a lot of business out there are are not achieving the majority of the energy from solar panels and I think companies are suited to that definitely not in the industrial in the in the business districts there's simply just not enough rooftop space given given the design and buildings are designed to be generators. The 2nd way that companies tend to deal with this and this is if they if they really concerned around emissions is to go purchase what is called. Renewable energy credentials or certificates. Now this again has a place for it. I mean we we a little bit nervous around that and and the way it works is basically you take renewable energy out there, you separate out the green credentials from the energy. So basically what you're left with is green credentials and dirty electricity and you know basically what you do is you buy that credentials instead of the electricity attached to that. Now this has a place you know but we do think you know that is a is a temporary solution and not that elegant solution. Because not necessarily creating a market for more renewable power, you just separating it out and of course there's limitations to how much you can actually purchase of that. The solution we are a lot more excited about and I think this is the way to solve it is called renewable energy reading, building large scale renewable energy plants and the most resource rich parts of the country connecting it to the National Grid and and effectively Wheeling it to businesses around the country.