A new initiative to work jointly for energy security to underpin economic growth in the Western Cape is gaining momentum. Last year, the Western Cape Government (WCG) and City of Cape Town (COCT) decided to work jointly on a few key initiatives that would secure business confidence in the Western Cape as having the right levers to underpin investment, including having stable and sufficient power supplies.
Energy security, therefore, has been identified as a game changer, along with an economic initiative, called Project Khulisa, which is focusing on a few sectors that offer opportunity of both high growth and job creation.
Our approach is to focus our efforts on what we are calling a few priority levers that offer high impact and relative ease of implementation. This is a challenging ask in the energy sphere, where electricity generation is dominated by one supplier, Eskom. The WCG also has no constitutional mandate to generate or distribute power and local governments to date deal with electricity distribution only. Added to the complexity is the link between municipal revenues and electricity tariffs – most municipalities use their electricity revenues to cross subsidize other services, giving little incentive to municipalities to promote reduced electricity consumption. The reality however is that consumers are reducing anyway, and so better for municipalities to try and manage the change rather than be pummelled by it.
Last month, the WCG, COCT and GreenCape brought together, in a design lab, other large municipalities in the Western Cape, industry specialists and business representatives to develop a platform of measures that will secure power for the province. A number of priority levers were proposed, including immediate measures to better manage loadshedding and alternative supplies, in particular rooftop solar PV installed by businesses for own use and to feed back into the grid.
Then, on March 3, these proposals were presented to business leaders, at a high level engagement, attended by Premier Helen Zille and Deputy Mayor Ian Neilson, along with other cabinet and Mayco members. Some proposals were rejected by business and others strongly endorsed, such as alternative small scale supplies through rooftop solar PV, demand response contracts, and scaled up energy efficiency. Alderman Nielson subsequently issued a bold statement of commitment by the City to pursue new measures and review current initiatives to ensure that the COCT retains its status as the fastest growing metro in the country.
An intensive programme of work and further engagements is now underway, with plans to reconvene the second design lab in June to select the priority levers or interventions that will produce visible, impactful results over the next five years.
This is the time to feed in ideas and potential solutions, and we appeal to our 110% Green supporters and flagships to contribute to this exciting design process to realise the goal we have set ourselves:
“To minimise the impact of power shortages and load shedding on the economy and employment over the next 5 years, and put the region on a path to a lower carbon, more efficient, energy secure future”
For more details on the Game Changer click here.