WHO GETS TO USE THE OCEAN: The Spatial Politics of Offshore Wind in South Africa?

Introduction 

Offshore wind has emerged as one of the most strategic renewable energy sources as the global race towards clean energy accelerates. South Africa is one of the African countries that has joined this conversation with about 2500 terawatt per hour (TWh) of potential energy production from offshore wind farms. This is equivalent to 2.5 million gigawatt per hour (GWh) which has the potential to supply approximately 800% of the country’s annual electricity demand. However, while offshore energy development is gaining attention, the underlying issue of spatial governance has not kept pace. This could result in a growing tension between competing ocean uses, shaped by fragmented legal frameworks and limited integration across sectors. As South Africa participates in the offshore energy transition, it must confront a fundamental question: who gets to use the ocean, and on what grounds? 

The Unseen Conflict 

It is important to note that spatial competition in South Africa’s oceans is not new. According to the National Framework for Marine Spatial Planning (NFMSP), the ocean waters already consist of competing ocean uses spanning from oil and gas extraction, shipping, fisheries, marine aquaculture, coastal tourism and now, offshore wind. As such, the emergence of offshore wind advances an existing spatial competition within the South African oceans. Currently, there is an active offshore wind project in South Africa by GenesisHexicon joint venture. The project is called the Gagasi Offshore Wind Farm and it’s in the exploration and planning phase. Due to this development, understanding the complexities that offshore wind farms introduce and its implication on existing regulatory framework is paramount.

Unlike point-based activities such as drilling from oil and gas or linear uses such as shipping corridors, offshore wind requires large, continuous, and permanently occupied sea areas. The sea areas depend on whether the wind farm is bottom-fixed or floating. The bottom-fixed offshore wind farms are designed for shallow waters at depths less than 50 meters, while the floating wind farms are designed for deep waters at depths less than 1000 meters. These sea areas are often accompanied by exclusion zones for safety and operational integrity which shifts the scale and intensity of ocean use. For instance, the potential overlap of these zones to oil and gas exploration blocks, corridors for large vessels, fishing grounds, and marine protected areas. 

This fundamental difference of offshore wind farms from other maritime industries thus places a demand for a regulatory framework that can manage potential conflict, overlapping and high-density energy infrastructures. A regulatory framework that accounts for questions such as: what happens to small-scale fishermen that have been fishing in the potential exclusion zones for decades? What are the procedures for prior consultation as this could be a threat to their source of living?

The regulatory blind spot beneath South Africa's oceans?

The South African ocean is governed by different legislative frameworks, institutions and departments. This includes dedicated legislation for environmental authorisation, shipping, licensing, fisheries and marine protected areas. However, the Marine Spatial Planning Act (MSP Act), is designed to manage and streamline competing demands from key maritime sectors in South Africa. Section 9 of the MSP Act establishes a National Working Group responsible for drafting Marine Area Plans (MAPs). MAPs are used to allocate exact ocean zones, such as shipping lanes and fishing grounds, within which multiple maritime sectors can operate.

While MSP provides a structured approach to reduce spatial conflict between existing maritime industries, its operationalisation is limited. First, MSP cannot resolve conflicting mandates and weak enforcement capacity across different departments for each industry. Second, MSP is not designed to proactively structure new energy transitions like offshore wind since the current governance frameworks were largely developed before offshore renewable energy became a realistic policy consideration. As such, the relationship between offshore wind development and existing maritime users is not clearly defined. 

Last, MSP is not a strong legal instrument that can resolve hard trade-offs amongst the competing maritime sectors. These trade-offs are political and policy decisions that require clear national direction. MSP can support those decisions, but it cannot make them on its own. Since South Africa is pioneering the development of offshore wind in Africa, the country will have to heavily depend on other jurisdictions such as Denmark, to regulate competing ocean uses without causing any spatial conflicts.

What now? 

As offshore wind becomes part of the maritime industries in South Africa, spatial pressures are likely to become more complex. Marine Spatial Planning offers an important foundation for managing these competing interests and promoting more coordinated ocean governance. However, its effectiveness will remain limited if it is not supported by clearer legal frameworks and energy-specific regulatory reform. Ultimately, the question is not whether South Africa has space for offshore energy development, but whether its governance systems are equipped to decide who gets access to that space, and on what grounds.

Biography

Mpho Sehlabo is a Doctoral Researcher specialising in Ocean Governance at the South African Research Chair Initiative: Mineral & Energy Resources Law in Africa (MERLiA) at the University of Cape Town.

LinkedIn: Mpho (Lydia) Sehlabo