Western Cape has placed energy resilience at the centre of its priorities this year, as the provincial government seeks to cushion businesses and residents against crippling power cuts.
This is according to Western Cape premier Alan Winde who says his government estimates the rolling blackouts may have cost the province up to R12.3 billion over a year, and as such there is need for concerted efforts in finding solutions to power cuts.
The data on the impact of power to the provincial economy was presented last year by member of the executive council for finance and economic opportunities, Mireille Wenger, at the tabling the of 2022/2023 provincial economic review and outlook report, which cited load shedding as “a barrier to economic growth”.
To this end, Western Cape has brought in former Eskom executive Alwie Lester to assist, and this week he joined City of Cape Town’s executive director of energy, Kadri Nassiep, and Winde on a tour to assess measures small to medium-sized businesses were implementing to mitigate the impact of Eskom’s ongoing power cuts.
“We need to make sure that the focus is on getting ourselves as energy resilient as possible in the province,” said Winde.
“In the last year, we had over 3,630 hours of load shedding across South Africa and we need to make sure that we mitigate it. Cape Town can already mitigate two levels of load shedding and I’m looking forward to those tenders going out in other municipalities like Stellenbosch, like George, like Saldanha Bay and Mossel Bay.”
The Western Cape is one the provinces that has seen growing appetite for renewable energy, due to Eskom power cuts.
The province has witnessed an upswing in renewable energy consumption, as local businesses and households seek alternative sources for affordable and uninterrupted power supply.
Western Cape energy plan for 2023 comes, after the government gazetted electricity regulations to allow municipalities to bypass Eskom to buy own renewable energy.
Mineral resources and energy minister Gwede Mantashe gazetted amendments to Electricity Regulations on New Generation Capacity in October, to enable municipal power generation.
This was seen as an important move that takes municipalities a step closer to by-passing troubled power utility Eskom and procuring their own cheaper and clean electricity from renewable energy sources.
Western Cape municipalities like the City of Cape Town had been at the forefront of calling on the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy to allow them to buy electricity from renewable energy independent power producers.
Western Cape government has since launched a R13 million fund to help municipalities in the province prepare for the adoption of renewable energy projects.
The Western Cape Municipal Energy Resilience Fund assists qualifying municipalities to conduct research and plan for renewable energy projects they will be developing to build energy security and buffer households and businesses from load-shedding in the province.
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