Cape Town - The George Municipality says it is expediting plans to relieve its residents from Stage 2 load shedding in the next 18 to 24 months and subsequently off Stage 4 load shedding within 36 months.
Director for Electro-technical Services, Bongani Mandla, said the municipality was implementing a three-pronged approach to significantly reduce reliance on energy supply from Eskom.
“This approach has three focus areas: one being Energy Efficiency, another Own-Build Programme, and finally, the procurement of energy from Independent Power Producers (IPPs).
“The highly unreliable supply of energy, coupled with the ever-increasing tariffs and the high cost of diesel, has forced George Municipality to implement some of its plans earlier than initially intended.
“In order to achieve this much-needed reduction of load shedding, the city has already started its Own-Build programme, which is intended to deliver around 30MW of energy into the grid over the next 36 months, subject to feasibility studies and environmental approval.
“The city is working hard to ensure that at least 10MW is delivered by this programme within the next 18 months.
“George issued a Request for Proposal from IPPs and received overwhelming support in terms of potential technologies available, as well as options available to supply between 30 and 40MW.
“A phased approach of IPP procurement will be followed to ensure that the city is able to secure between 30 to 40 MW from this programme within the next 36 months.”
The municipality said that Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) units at a cost of R3.6 million have been installed at 56 of the main traffic intersections.
Large generators at a number of pump stations have also been installed in order to keep water flowing and sewerage pump stations operational during load shedding.
“The municipality commissioned a PV Plant as a pilot project for the main municipal building in September 2021.
“The 300kWp (kilowatt peak) solar plant at the Civic Centre parking lot helps keep systems going during load shedding and produces on average 41 500 kilowatt hours (kWh) of energy a month which supplies the Civic Centre building.
“The excess flows into the grid and supplies the neighbouring houses, residents, and businesses. The total production is an average of 500 000kWh of energy per year,” the municipality said.
Cape Times