coalrich but energystarved south africa will not immediately abandon its fossilfuelled electricity generating plants as it transitions to cleaner forms of power president cyril ramaphosa said sunday south africa one of the worlds largest polluters which generates about 80 percent of its electricity through coal is in the grip of an energy crisis it has been blamed on ageing power stations sabotage and theft of coal and spare parts by organised gangs since 2021 the country has secured several billions of dollars in international loans and grants to support a green transition but ramaphosa cautioned against the perception that we are called upon to make a tradeoff between energy security and a just transition to a lowcarbon economy addressing his african national congress anc partys senior officials he said it was not the case that we must make a choice between coal and renewable energy our energy architecture is 80percent coalpowered there is just no way we are going to close those power stations just like that he said two recently built plants ranked among some of the biggest coalpowered stations in the world are beset by design problems but they will remain operational until the end of their 40year lifespan he vowed we have invested a lot of money into those power stations he told the anc meeting plants nearing the end of their shelf lives will be repurposed for clean energy he said south africas energy crisis has forced scheduled outages ranging from twoandhalf hours to 12 hours in total in a day