MechChem Africa March 2017

8 / 48

6 ¦ MechChem Africa • March 2017
This 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
An interview with Maloba Tshehla
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.
– 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
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.
ML: Why the energy and sustainability
sector?
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