Every year the World Energy Council's (WEC) Energy Trilemma Index measures the performance of country energy and climate policies in balancing the triple challenge of the energy trilemma.
It assigns a score to each dimension of the trilemma - energy security, energy equity (affordability and access), and environmental sustainability - and pinpoints areas for improvement.
South Africa takes the 83rd spot globally among 129 countries and receives a score of 96 in this year's Energy Trilemma Index. This marks a decline from position 79 since last year.
The primary reason for South Africa's drop is a result of other countries like China and Nigeria improving their performance. South Africa's scores for the three energy performance areas have remained similar to last year's scores. In the 2014 Energy Trilemma Index, South Africa has maintained its position for energy security and energy sustainability from last year, but moved down seven places in terms of energy equity.
South Africa is placed 42nd for energy security, 85th for energy equity and 129th for environmental sustainability, giving an overall score of 96 points. These results are interesting, especially given the general perceptions in South Africa that energy security has deteriorated from 2013 to 2014, whereas energy equity - which is the measure of access to energy - has improved.
"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," said Brian Statham, chairman of the South African National Energy Association (SANEA).
"This poor performance on environmental sustainability comes as no surprise since South Africa is 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."
In energy security, South Africa's strongest dimension, performance remains stable and average as a result of a homogenous electricity mix that relies heavily on coal. Energy equity is low in South Africa, as petrol and electricity prices become more expensive. In environmental sustainability South Africa ranks last due to the coal generated electricity together with extremely high emissions rates, and the yet to be felt impact of the strong renewable generation programme that has been embarked on to harness the bountiful natural endowments of sun and wind potential.
When the performance of the other WEC members in Southern Africa are considered, Botswana is ranked 91, Namibia 88 and Zimbabwe is last at 129. As the economic leader for the region South Africa leads this group in performance. It is the difference in the energy security and energy equity scores that make the difference for South Africa when compared to its neighbours.
The World Energy Council's 2014 Index finds that the best-performing nations tend to be developed countries with higher shares of energy coming from low- or zero-carbon energy sources supported by well-established energy efficiency programmes. The top ten performing countries in 2014 are Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, United Kingdom, Denmark, Canada, Austria, Finland, France and New Zealand.
