The City of Cape Town aims to become the top renewable energy investment destination in South Africa as it puts in place programmes to enable the diversification of energy for cleaner, cheaper sources and to enable the growth of the green economy for meaningful economic growth.
Speaking at the Africa Renewables Investment Summit today, 27 September 2022, which is being held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre over the next three days, the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Energy, Councillor Beverley van Reenen outlined key interventions the City is taking to end load-shedding over time, enhance energy supply security, diversify the energy mix through own build and third party suppliers and to create an enabling environment for greater investment into renewables and cleaner sources of energy that will be to the benefit of Cape Town.
‘The City has a vision to become a climate-resilient, resource-efficient and carbon-neutral city that enables meaningful economic growth for inclusive job creation, especially in ultra-promising sectors of the future such as the renewables sector.
‘The City aims to be a leader in renewable energy and alternative technology solutions through facilitation, promotion and helping to create an enabling environment for greater investment in this sector. South Africa, is facing extraordinary energy challenges. So far this year, we have had a record of over 1 800 hours of rolling outages.
‘While there has been progress with Eskom’s Just Energy Transition programme towards lower carbon technologies, it requires further investment and support for its targets to come to fruition.
‘As a City we are taking the lead. Programmes to diversify and secure our energy needs have already started including tender processes that are under way for Independent Power Producers, the City’s own build programme, starting with a 7MW solar plant in Atlantis, and generation from small-scale embedded generators. Our wheeling pilot project is at an advanced stage and we are actively exploring options for battery storage to optimise the use of renewables in our energy mix.
‘Cape Town is undoubtedly the premier investment destination for renewables,’ said Councillor Van Reenen.