Biosolutions can help turn the country’s agricultural resources and waste into a greater source of domestic energy security
South Africa’s energy-security debate has traditionally centred on how the country can secure reliable access to energy. But as pressure grows to diversify the energy mix and reduce exposure to global fuel markets, a clear solution is emerging: powering South Africa from within – enabling South Africa to grow its way to greater energy security.
The closure of major domestic refineries has fundamentally changed the country’s liquid-fuels landscape. South Africa now imports close to 75% of its liquid fuel in finished form, increasing its exposure to international oil prices, geopolitical disruption and supply-chain shocks. Headline inflation reached 4% in April 2026, and October is expected to see the highest petrol prices in South Africa’s history. Against this backdrop, developing domestic renewable-fuel capacity is becoming increasingly important.
The Minister for Mineral and Petroleum Resources, Gwede Mantashe has emphasised the need to strengthen energy security while advancing a more sustainable energy system.
For Novonesis, that opportunity starts closer to home: with what South Africa grows, what it throws away and what biosolutions can do to turn those resources into energy.
“Energy security is ultimately about resilience and resilience starts at home,” says Nanda Kishore Chanda, Country Manager at Novonesis South Africa. “South Africa has significant agricultural capacity and an opportunity to explore how biology can help create more value from the resources already available to the country. The opportunity is not simply to produce biofuels, but to build a more resilient system connecting farmers, industry, energy and the broader economy.”
From imported fuel to home-grown energy
South Africa’s policy and industry discussions are placing greater emphasis on a diversified energy mix and indigenous resources, including biofuels, biogas and waste-to-energy. With the Integrated Resource Plan, 2025, there is an opportunity to build domestic energy value chains around locally available agricultural feedstocks, while supporting the country’s Just Energy Transition framework and its target to achieve Net Zero by 2050.
Recent work by the Localisation Support Fund (LSF) identifies grain sorghum and sugarcane among the most viable domestic feedstocks for bioethanol production. A mandatory 10% bioethanol blend (E10), for example, could create a domestic market approaching one billion litres of bioethanol a year, while retaining a significant portion of fuel expenditure within the South African economy.
A scaled biofuels industry could stimulate investment and opportunities across farming, processing and logistics, but growth must be commercially viable and avoid unnecessary competition with food production. The priority is therefore not simply to grow crops for fuel, but to extract more value from the resources South Africa already produces.
Making more from what South Africa already has
One of the most compelling opportunities lies in resources that are already being produced but are not being fully utilised. South Africa generates an estimated 600 to 800 tonnes of used cooking oil (UCO) every day. This has the potential to become a sustainable feedstock for biodiesel production. The same principle applies to agricultural residues and organic waste, where significant amounts of potential energy remain locked within existing waste streams.
Globally, agricultural and organic waste has the potential to produce the equivalent of almost 1 trillion cubic metres of natural gas each year, yet less than 5% of this potential is currently being utilised. For South Africa, these waste streams represent an opportunity to produce more energy without necessarily requiring additional land to be dedicated to fuel crops.
Unlocking these resources depends on making conversion commercially viable. Enzymes and other biological solutions can improve the processes used to turn agricultural crops, UCO and organic waste into bioethanol, biodiesel and biogas. By increasing yields, optimising production and extracting more value from each feedstock, biosolutions can help make the economics of domestic renewable-fuel production work.
From policy ambition to domestic value
Building a competitive domestic biofuels industry will require policy certainty, investment, infrastructure, reliable feedstock supply chains and collaboration across agriculture, energy, industry and government. It will also require a practical approach to food and fuel.
Agricultural growth is central to meeting both and not having to choose one over the other. Biosolutions can help farmers produce more from each hectare by improving crop productivity and resource efficiency. Applied to resilient, water-efficient crops such as sorghum, they can support stronger yields while easing pressure on land and water. Combined with better use of agricultural residues and waste streams, this creates a pathway to strengthen food security and diversify domestic agricultural production towards sustainable biofuel feedstocks, so that the same productivity gains help the country both feed and fuel itself.
Growth across these value chains can also translate into jobs—from farming and feedstock collection to transport and diverse livelihoods. Each pathway creates employment at different points: farmers producing sorghum and sugarcane; small businesses collecting used UCO, crop residues and organic waste; transporters moving feedstocks; and technicians, plant operators and engineers converting them into bioethanol, biodiesel and biogas. Developing several bioenergy pathways, rather than relying on one single feedstock or technology, can spread investment across rural and industrial economies, support new skills and enterprises, and help ensure that the energy transition delivers broader economic opportunity.
International experience shows what becomes possible when policy, agriculture, technology and industry align around domestic fuel production. In 2024, biofuels reduced global oil demand by an estimated 2.5 million barrels per day. The recent supply chain crisis fuelled by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz saw several countries including Indonesia, Malaysia, Mozambique and Zimbabwe introduce or scale up their biofuels mandates. South Africa now has an opportunity to develop a model suited to its own resources and economic realities.
Sugarcane and sorghum can contribute to ethanol production; UCO can become biodiesel; and agricultural and organic waste can produce biogas. Biosolutions can help make each pathway more efficient, shifting the energy-security conversation from where South Africa buys its fuel to how much more it can produce at home.
For Novonesis, this is the role of biosolutions in South Africa’s energy transition: not to provide a single answer, but to make more domestic options commercially possible. By bringing biology into agriculture, waste and energy, South Africa can strengthen food and energy security, support viable local production and create wider economic opportunity.
For more information: https://www.novonesis.com/en/energy-security-starts-at-home