WCG Launches the Energy Security Game Changer

The Western Cape Government working jointly with the City of Cape Town launched the Energy Security Game Changer as part of Earth Hour on the 19^th of March 2016 in partnership with the V&A Waterfront and the World Wildlife Fund South Africa.

The Energy Security Game Changer is an initiative aiming to ensure enough power for growth in the province that is sustainable and low carbon.  Earth Hour, each year, mobilises more support for the planet, exceeding expectations and inspiring change on a number of environmental concerns, through switching off non-essential lights between 8:30 and 9:30pm, joining cities, businesses and individuals around the world who are doing likewise. The Executive mayor Patricia De Lille expressed gratitude during her speech as she addressed attendees on what she calls an extremely important area of concern in the country [energy].

The un-anticipated load-shedding came into effect in 2015 following a collapse of one of ESKOM’s power plants, negatively affecting businesses and resulting in job losses. Mayor Patricia De Lille, making a call to all, mentioned that for economic growth and job creation to prevail, we must act now to make our City and Province energy secure.

The City of Cape Town counts amongst its milestones in the energy sector:

• Using Steenbras Dam to effectively avoid stage 1 load shedding and the implementation of low curtailment schemes in some of its  industrial areas
• Enabling household and businesses to play a part in providing the solutions to the energy shortfalls while building local resilience for the future
• Having signed small-scale embedded electricity generation contracts with Black River Park Investments and 17 other major commercial industrial customers who are able to feed electricity into the City’s grid
• Having signed contracts with 43 residential customers who are able to feed into the City’s grid in a legal and responsible manner.
• Ensuring that all 1 500 traffic lights now have efficient LED light bulbs with more than 25 000 street lights having been retrofitted.

The Western Cape Premier Helen Zille also made an address highlighting the role businesses and citizens need to play and indicated the key areas of focus for the Game Changer viz. Energy Efficiency, Rooftop Solar PV, the Importation of Liquefied Natural Gas and Load Management. She encouraged businesses to invest in grid-tied Rooftop Solar PV, and other energy efficient measures such as doing an LED lighting retrofit. The Primer also indicated that The Western Cape Government will engage with insurance and banking sectors on their roles in encouraging businesses and citizens to install solar water heaters as part of the game changer.

The Premier also mentioned that, The Western Cape Government would subsequently run the “Take Charge, Switch and Save” campaign, as part of the game changer. The campaign focusses on educating and informing businesses and citizens on the steps they can take to save electricity throughout the year, which will save them money at the same time. Citizens can also visit www.switchandsave.co.za  to find out more about installing solar water heaters. “We are committed to securing our energy future, which will contribute to growing the economy, creating jobs and positively impacting the environment. We call on every resident and business in the Western Cape to make the same commitment and to take charge of their energy usage so that we can secure our energy future over the next few years” – said Premier Helen Zille. She also emphasised that “In the current economic climate, it is critical for us to find ways of supporting the growth of the energy industry in the Western Cape as estimates indicate that the energy efficiency market alone could grow to R1.3 bn by 2019 with approximately 1000 job opportunities being created”.