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Powering Futures: The Green Skilling Opportunity

Lucas Chaumontet Igor Lakic Adwoa Banful Sunayna Bholah Gertrude Makhaya

South Africa is in the midst of a significant energy transition, aiming to add 120-150 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2050 while phasing out 20 GW of coal-fired power by 2040. This transition brings opportunities but also challenges, particularly concerning inequality, unemployment, and poverty. To ensure an inclusive shift, a coordinated skilling effort is essential. The Just Energy Transition Skilling for Employment Programme (JET SEP), led by National Business Initiative (NBI) and in partnership with Boston Consulting Group (BCG), was created coordinate private sector efforts to align workforce development with the demands of emerging green industries.

The Programme’s first publication "Powering Futures – The Green Skill Opportunity" is a culmination of rigorous discussion with industry Working Groups to develop a local, industry-endorsed and demand-led fact base for South Africa. The publication captures key quantitative and qualitative insights across seven sectors – Solar, Wind, Transmission, Green Hydrogen, Battery Energy Storage Solutions (BESS), New Energy Vehicles, and Energy Efficiency.

The model forecasting model behind the report anticipates the jobs coming online based on the current pipeline of projects in South Africa (up to 2030) and national targets (up to 2050), and delves into 200+ local municipalities, 35+ occupations and covers the end-to-end project value chain.

The insights captured in Powering Futures and the supporting data is intended to support national, community and company planning for the JET, providing a granular picture of the jobs and skills need when, where and at what scale. With 400,000 - 600,000 jobs forecasted by 2050 - including 120,000 – 200,000 jobs within this decade - the skilling need is immediate.

The skilling system needs to deliver the skills demanded by the key value chains of the energy transition at an appropriate pace and scale. The solution is not just a massive scale-up of training, but a fundamental and sustainable shift towards an agile, co-ordinated, place-based ecosystem approach to skilling