MechChem Africa March 2017

An interview with Maloba Tshehla

T his month SAIChE’s Michelle Low speaks to Maloba G Tshehla, who has aBachelor of Science in chemical engineering and aMasters degree in sustainable development fromtheUniversity of Cape Town and Stellenbosch respectively. Tshehla works as a renewable energy sector manager at Green Cape. ML: Tell us about yourself. Hi Michelle, thank you for this awesome opportunity. So a little bit about myself. I am a Mosotho national and have grown up in various parts of this region – namely, Durban

Development with a focus on renewable energy. This, to me, is a well-aligned purpose forme, while cleaner petrol andmoreefficient enginesareequallyimportantinthetransition to a sustainable economy. This passion also extends to wellness, fitness and overall health, a lifestyle that I live and share my journey with others, in the hope of encouraging and assisting them on their own personal journeys. A healthy body, a healthy mind, a healthy person, a healthy society, a better world to live in. ML: What do you do at GreenCape? At Green Cape, I work as a renewable energy and energy services sector expert. My role is to manage our relationships with member companies and individuals in the renewable energy and energy services – energy efficien- cy and embedded generation – value chains. This entails hosting networking events to create platforms for information sharing and clarification on pertinent industry issues, understanding and relaying this understand- ing of policies to companies within the value chain, as well as relaying industry concerns to government. The ultimate aim of this work, and of GreenCape’s existence is to see more in- vestments into projects within renewable energy, energy services and the wider green economy–especially investments that lead to manufacturing activities which create much needed jobs. Energy is central to development and if we are to go on a more sustainable development pathway, it is imperative that our sources of energy and how we interact with energy is more sustainable. South Africa has one of theworld’smost energy-intensive economies as well as most carbon intensive energy mix ML: Why the energy and sustainability sector?

– for three years in my pre-teen years, and then in three different neighbourhoods in the Maseru district of Lesotho. I like to think this has enabled me to quickly and easily make friends, remain open minded and not fixed to one single place. We are all citizens of this world. As a result of this global citizenship, I de- veloped a passion for climate change mitiga- tion at a very young age (midway through my high school years), which lead to a decision to pursue chemical engineering studies – the ultimate aim having been to make clean pet- rol – and then later a Masters in Sustainable

In the renewable energy space, GreenCape strives to inform investors of changes and developments within South Africa’s utility scale renewable energy sector. It highlights the composition of the market, discusses key players, market size and noteworthy trends, and then covers the main guiding policies and legislation in the renewable energy space, before exploring opportunities, incentives and barriers within the sector. Depicted above is the Darling Wind Farm in the Western Cape.

6 ¦ MechChem Africa • March 2017