Cape Town - As load shedding continues to disrupt the daily operations of thousands of businesses and households across the metro, the City said it planned to add up to 1 gigawatt of independent power supply – the first 650 megawatts of this within five years, including enough to protect against four Eskom load shedding stages by 2026.
Launching its Energy Strategy yesterday, the City said short-term load shedding mitigation would be achieved largely through a mix of Steenbras Hydro Plant; 500MW of dispatchable energy and demand management programmes such as Power Heroes and Large Power Users (LPUs) curtailment.
Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said Cape Town was the first city with a formally adopted energy strategy to outline plans to end load shedding.
“In Cape Town, the most exciting part is that residents and businesses are going to play a crucial role in helping us to end load shedding by working together as Team Cape Town.
“We will buy as much solar power as households and businesses can sell to us under the Cash for Power programme.
“Households can also volunteer for our Power Heroes programme to remotely switch off geysers at peak times in a bid to avoid a full stage of load shedding.
“And in another first, we are enabling businesses to sell power to each other and wheel it across the grid, which will add 350MW of decentralised power to Cape Town’s grid in time,” said Hill-Lewis.
Commitment made, and now commitment met:
— Geordin Hill-Lewis (@geordinhl) February 12, 2024
We said we would let residential households earn cash for power from their solar PV generation systems. Today, Cape Town has officially become the first city to enable this. 🔋👏
We started with businesses, and now households too, can… pic.twitter.com/mTf15elJS3
This plan, which would also enable households to earn cash for power from their solar PV generation systems, has been met with mixed reaction by opposition parties, who said it would only benefit the few.
EFF councillor Banzi Dambuza said the City was using the energy plan as an election tool.
“This is the DA’s blue book plan to privatise the energy sector, the same as the ANC’s plan to unbundle Eskom and give it away to private companies.
“This will not solve anything but make things even worse for our people.
“We see this as a strategic plan being implemented as a cover-up.
“For long, the DA has been pushing the agenda of privatisation, which will see people paying more for electricity.
“Now that the elections are at our doorstep, the DA is using this opportunity to be seen as providing a solution to the electricity problem,” said Dambuza.
GOOD Party councillor Suzette Little said former Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille initiated the project, and the City was now “finishing what she started”.
“De Lille took the Minister of Energy to court for refusing to permit the City to purchase power directly from IPPs and to procure clean energy.
“It was her court case that paved the way for the state to allow municipalities the right to procure directly.
“However, the work is not done, as the initiative is essentially only available to a select few and those who can afford to take on the projects. As GOOD, we hope the City will utilise some of the R10 billion to assist broader communities with the installation fees and the engineering costs.”
Energy Mayco member Beverley van Reenen said the City’s strategy comprised three key commitments: to end load shedding, alleviate energy poverty, and optimise energy use across Cape Town.
“This will be backed by a future-fit municipal electricity service, proactive electricity infrastructure upgrades, and support for residents to seize opportunities in the changing energy market as we build the city of hope for all in line with our long-term vision,” said Van Reenen.