South Africa is one of the most industrialised countries in Africa. The country is extremelyenergy-intensive for a number of reasons, which include a lack of awareness of energyefficiency and demand-side management (DSM), the low cost of electricity, the absence ofenergy conservation regulations and standards, lack of driving force, limited experience andtrack record of energy service companies as well as the financial viability of projects.It is anticipated that South Africa will have run out of excess capacity by 2007, a fact that isforcing Eskom to take action to reduce peak demand by means of certain initiatives. This in turnhas led to electricity becoming more expensive during certain periods of the day. The result isan increasing need for energy efficiency and demand-side management by end users,regulating bodies and Government. It is, however, critical that projects, implemented under theabove-mentioned barriers, deliver impacts that can be sustained over time, otherwise thebenefits would only be short-term and of no value to the stakeholders.Measurement and verification are important and necessary aspects of any energy-efficiency,demand-side management or dean development mechanism (CDM) project. It allows for theobjective quantification of the project's impacts by a third party, thus lending credibility to theproject outcomes. Its greatest benefit, if conducted correctly, is the increased sustainability ofprojects and their impacts.Energy efficiency also makes a direct contribution to the reduction of greenhouse gasemissions. The fact that South Africa is able to participate in greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigationthrough the clean development mechanism offers an opportunity to increase the financialviability of energy-efficiency projects, whilst achieving GHG mitigation. Once againmeasurement and verification would be critical to the success and sustainability of theseenergy-related greenhouse gas mitigation projects over time.A need was subsequently identified to develop an integrated approach that provides a clearmethodology that could be applied to accurately quantify and verify the savings and impacts thatemanate from energy efficiency, demand-side management and greenhouse gas mitigationprojects. If applied correctly, the integrated approach would help with the sustainableimplementation of energy efficiency, demand-side management and greenhouse gas mitigationprojects in South Africa.This study proposes such an integrated approach that provides a methodology that builds oninternational protocols. It provides a flexible, clear, accurate and transparent methodology toassist in the sustainable implementation of projects.The integrated methodology has been accepted as the standard by which South Africa'sparastatal utility, Eskom, prefers implementation together with measurement and verification ontheir DSM-funded projects. The approach has proved to be flexible, transparent and replicable.It has facilitated better project implementation on a number of occasions and proved to provideaccurate and verified results to all the stakeholders, which include the demand impact duringeach time-of-use (TOU) period, the impact on electricity consumption, the impact on the monthlyand annual electricity accounts of end users and the environmental impacts such as GHGemissions and water consumption.
