Hotline gives South Africans a say in green energy projects

When Shireen Gouws heard about a new hotline advertised in the community centre where she works in the small town of Laingsburg, she was quick to spread the word.

Finally, she thought, people could have their say about renewable projects in their area and make sure they were reaping the benefits of the transition to green energy.

The toll-free hotline, available in all 11 official languages, was launched on July 9 after a year-long pilot in Laingsburg and Sutherland, where people could call in with complaints, queries and suggestions related to the wind farms operating in the area.

"Usually companies come and go and there is no engagement with the community, maybe a meeting once in a while. Now the community can express themselves if they are happy or unhappy about something," Gouws, who works as a clerk at the community centre, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a phone interview.

The Engage! hotline was launched by n sustainable consulting company Cultiver after a year-long pilot with Enel Green Power, a renewable power unit of Italy's largest utility firm, Enel Group.

Enel Green runs the Karusa and Soetwater wind farms in Laingsburg and Sutherland. Cultiver has worked with Enel on community projects in the area since construction of the wind farms began in 2019, and the hotline offers a way of engaging with the public.

Enel did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Cultiver offers the hotline platform to renewable energy, infrastructure and mining projects across southern Africa.

Its aim is to ensure residents in remote towns where solar and wind farms are being installed are included in the dialogue about how the green projects can also benefit locals, said Fezeka Stuurman, head of Cultiver.

Engage! allows community members to put their grievances directly to project owners and local government, if relevant, to ensure their concerns are dealt with urgently and minimise the risk of social unrest, Stuurman said.

"We decided we needed something for communities to reach us directly and in a way that would be dignified, private and insightful," Stuurman told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

As a result of the pilot project, Cultiver helped facilitate the drilling of boreholes for drought-stricken areas, the creation of a value-chain workshop for businesses interested in working with Enel, and the organisation of a registration event for small businesses to take part in procurement, Stuurman said.

Richard Halsey, a policy adviser on the South African team at the International Institute for Sustainable Development, praised the hotline's free access and inclusivity for community members.

But the fact that it is funded by project owners could mean some renewable energy and mining companies or infrastructure developers may choose not to use the hotline as it is an additional and optional expense, he said.

Its effectiveness could also be limited as community members are only invited to engage once the project has started, rather than giving them an initial say in what kind of project they would like to see in their area, Halsey said.

"Effective communication across communities isn't only a 'nice to have' bonus for developers," he said.

"Real involvement and interaction can empower decision-making on both sides,  smoothing the way towards clean energy deployment and helping avoid frustrating delays and opposition," he said in emailed comments.

South Africa is among the world's top 15 greenhouse gas emitters, and the leading emitter in Africa. About 80% of its carbon emissions, and about 90,000 jobs, are linked to coal.

South Africa has secured $676m in grants from rich nations to shift from coal to clean energy sources such as wind and solar power.

The country's sweeping coastline, vast semi-desert and near all-year-round sun are seen by many renewable energy investors as offering impressive potential for solar and wind projects.

South Africa has in place a 13-year-old programme that procures clean energy from independent power producers (IPPs) to feed into the national grid, while aiming to empower local communities by giving them some of the profits.

IPP policy states the power producers should prioritise socioeconomic development within a 50km radius of the project site.

More than 6,000 megawatts of generation capacity, primarily from wind and solar, have been granted to bidders under the IPP scheme, according to the US International Trade Administration.

However, research has shown the money from the projects does not always trickle down to the surrounding communities, building a culture of mistrust when new projects move in.

The hotline is meant to combat the trend. It is advertised through pamphlets and community ambassadors from Cultiver, who talk directly to residents.

Gouws said community members told her they used the hotline to understand how the wind farm would support the community, and to complain if the funding processes were not clear.

In the past year the platform, which is also available via WhatsApp, received more than 150 calls from residents in Sutherland and Laingsburg, which together are home to about 12,000 people.

Around 50% of the calls were about funding and financial support for community projects under the IPP policy, 20% were grievance-related, 20% focused on training and support for small businesses, and the rest were general inquiries, Cultiver said.

The response time for grievances is about 10 to 20 working days, depending on the complexity, Stuurman said.

"Communities called us directly saying we need a counsellor, we need a school psychologist, we need a safe house," Stuurman said.

A number of calls were about a contractor who was allegedly underpaying workers and failing to supply necessary protective equipment, she said. Following guidance received via the Engage! platform, the workers submitted a collective petition and a new contractor was appointed.

Gouws said students, whose bursaries were being funded through Enel's community profit-sharing schemes used the hotline to follow up on payment delays, resolving the issue almost immediately.

The platform was a good start to allow "quieter voices to share concerns, to inform and be informed," said Allistar Gibbons, manager of community services in the Karoo Hoogland municipality in the Northern Cape, where Sutherland is.

Community support also has a financial benefit, said Stuurman, who has witnessed protests and stoppages halt  projects she has worked on in the past decade.

"When you're investing billions into an asset, the immediate risk is around having that asset jeopardised in some shape or form," she said.

The economy was built on extractive mining industries, including coal, gold and diamonds, that made use of black, migrant labour to enrich the white minority during colonial and apartheid years.

The renewable industry offers an opportunity to learn from past practices, said Holle Wlokas, co-founder of the Initiative for Social Performance in Renewable Energy non-profit.

Wlokas said Engage! represented an "exciting opportunity" to keep investing in community relationships via the hotline and in person.

"We do see in the renewable sector, at times, community narratives comparing renewables with the mining industry," Wlokas said in a phone interview.

"Quite a common saying is that the wind and solar projects steal the diamonds from the sky as the mining sector stole the diamonds out of the earth," she said.

"That experience of extraction and exploitation is an important one to listen very carefully to."

Thomson Reuters Foundation