1. The Department of Science and Technology (DST) has a total budget of just over 7.5 billion for the 2017/18 financial year.
The Hydrogen and energy subprogramme, which is responsible for the implementation of the Energy Grand Challenge, will spend just over R156 million to fund applied energy research to support the development and uptake of clean energy technologies in South Africa and other parts of the world. The bulk of these funds support universities and science councils for research and development in the areas of hydrogen fuel cell, solar, wind and energy storage technologies. Hence, the percentage of the DST ‘s budget that is allocated towards renewable energy alternatives is just under 2%.