Pretoria - Five tonnes of coal were off-loaded at one of the entrances of power parastatal Eskom's Megawatt Park offices on Monday.
"At dawn, Greenpeace Africa activists used three dumper trucks to unload five tonnes of coal in front of the Eskom Megawatt Park offices, effectively blocking one of the entrances to the building with the coal," said Greenpeace Climate and Energy campaigner, Melita Steele.
Eskom chief executive Brian Dames will this afternoon present the power parastal's 2010/11 annual results.
The off-loading of the coal was a means to publicly demand that Eskom stop the construction of the Kusile coal-fired power station.
According to Greenpeace, the parastatal should "end its addiction to coal and shift massive investments to large-scale renewable energy projects."
Greenpeace activists held banners calling on the parastatal to stop using coal, adding that the use of coal leads to environmental destruction.
"Instead of locking South Africa into a dirty energy future by investing in Kusile, Eskom should be investing in people and green jobs," said Steele.
South Africa should move straight to a future powered by clean, safe and renewable sources of energy. By 2030, 50 percent of South Africa's electricity should come from renewable sources, said Greenpeace.
The action by Greenpeace comes despite the release of the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP2) last year for public comment, which forms the basis of South Africa's power generation programme for the next 20 years.
Under the approved (which was approved in March) IRP2010, coal is now expected to make up 15 percent of all new energy generation - down from 16 percent under the draft IRP2010 plan; open cycle gas turbines (OGCT) 9 percent (down from 15 percent); hydro 6 percent (down from 9 percent); imported gas 6 percent (up from 5 percent), while nuclear will be 23 percent (down from 25 percent).
Renewable energy will make up 42 percent of the energy mix.
Eskom provides 95 percent of the country's electricity and 45 percent of the continent's electricity.
