Ramokgopa warned that the continent\u2019s mineral wealth and industrial potential will mean little without integrated planning, coordinated investment and reliable energy systems.<\/p>\n
Speaking at the opening of the three-day 2026 Energy Indaba in Cape Town on Tuesday, Ramokgopa told delegates from government, finance, and civil society that Africa is indispensable to the world\u2019s shift toward cleaner energy technologies.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this reconfigured world, Africa is not a peripheral actor. Africa is a structural anchor in the global transition,\u201d he said. \u201cWithout African platinum group metals, the hydrogen economy cannot achieve scale. Without African cobalt, manganese and copper, the battery revolution alters. Without African vanadium, long\u2011duration storage remains constrained.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ramokgopa stressed that mineral endowment alone is not enough to drive transformation. He said Africa must build the systems, infrastructure and industrial capacity required to turn raw materials into value\u2011added products.<\/p>\n
\u201cA battery precursor facility cannot operate on an intermittent supply. Green steel production depends on stable hydrogen and firm baseload capacity. Electrolysers require grid resilience, and advanced manufacturing demands quality, predictability and scale,\u201d he said. \u201cMinerals without energy do not become industry. Industry without transmission does not become exports.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ramokgopa argued that Africa\u2019s energy future cannot be shaped through fragmented decision\u2011making. \u201cTransformation cannot be advanced through isolated engagement. It requires coordination across power pools, harmonised regulatory frameworks, credible project pipelines and sustained dialogue between sovereign actors and institutional capital,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He described the Energy Indaba as a platform that must \u201cserve as a catalyst for transactions, not only discussion\u201d, bringing together integrated resource plans, development finance institutions, transmission\u2011expansion strategies and infrastructure investors.<\/p>\n
As the African Continental Free Trade Area expands intra\u2011African trade, Ramokgopa said regional energy integration will become the backbone of industrial corridors, manufacturing clusters, mineral\u2011processing zones, hydrogen hubs and digital economies. \u201cEnergy planning and trade integration must move together,\u201d he said. \u201cAfrica\u2019s opportunity lies not only in what we extract, but in what we build.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
–ChannelAfrica–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":27590,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-27589","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"South Africa\u2019s (SA) Minister of Electricity, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, has urged African countries to position themselves at the centre of the global energy transition. ","published_date":"","news_description":"South Africa\u2019s (SA) Minister of Electricity, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, has urged African countries to position themselves at the centre of the global energy transition. ","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/27589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/27589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27591,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/27589\/revisions\/27591"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=27589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}