South Africa has dropped four places to rank eighty-third in the World Energy Council’s (WEC's) 2014 Energy Trilemma Index as the country’s performance remained stagnant, while other countries such as China and Nigeria improved their rankings.

The WEC Energy Trilemma Index measured the performance of country energy and climate policies in balancing the triple challenges of energy security, energy equity –comprising affordability and access – and environmental sustainability.

“Investment in energy infrastructure is a prerequisite for countries being able to balance their energy trilemma. The lessons from our 2014 work will help all actors raise their game to drive such investment.

“Governments need to improve their policy frameworks. Financiers need to get more comfortable with investing in new technologies and in developing countries, where the need for new infrastructure is mostly concentrated, and the energy sector must generate a bigger pipeline of bankable projects and increase the speed of project development,” WEC World Energy Trilemma Study executive chairperson Joan MacNaughton explained.

In the 2014 index, South Africa’s position in terms of energy security and energy sustainability remained the same as in 2013, with the country ranking forty-second and 129th in the respective categories.

The South African National Energy Association (Sanea) explained that South Africa’s energy security performance remained stable and average as a result of a homogenous electricity mix that relied heavily on coal.

However, in terms of energy equity, the country had dropped seven places to rank eighty-fifth.

Sanea noted that this was as a result of petrol and electricity prices having become more expensive.

“It is unfortunate that our score for energy equity is not improving, notwithstanding the good plans and intentions of the South African government. Hopefully the results from the WEC Trilemma study will reinforce the need for South Africa to focus in this area going forward,” Sanea chairperson Brian Statham commented.

He added that South Africa’s poor performance in terms of environmental sustainability was not a surprise given that the country was highly reliant on coal for electricity generation.

“It is anticipated that the inclusion of renewable energy in the electricity supply mix will have a positive impact on this in the coming years,” he said.

Sanea further noted that South Africa still led Southern Africa in terms of performance as measured by the WEC Energy Trilemma Index, which ranked Botswana ninety-first, Namibia eighty-eighth and Zimbabwe 129th.

“It is the difference in the energy security and energy equity scores that make the difference for South Africa when compared to its neighbours,” Sanea said.

The top 10 performing countries in the 2014 index were Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, the UK, Denmark, Canada, Austria, Finland, France and New Zealand.