Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said the City of Cape Town has opened its first round of procurement of power from independent power producers.
Speaking at the Solar Power Africa conference in Cape Town on Wednesday, Hill-Lewis expressed that over the coming months, the City will procure up to 300MW of renewable energy, which will largely come from solar photovoltaic plants.
“Solar photovoltaic power is a clean and affordable source of electricity that can be used to generate at the scale required by large economies, while emitting negligible amounts of carbon,” the mayor said.
This is an important step on a journey to making Cape Town the first loadshedding-free city in the country, and the city will be leading the way in harnessing solar power to achieve an energy-secure future for South Africa and the continent, Hill-Lewis expressed.
“South Africa’s energy crisis is an economic emergency. We cannot keep on just paying lip service to the need for energy security in SA. There is only one topic in the energy debate: how to end this crisis as soon as possible.”
“We have come to accept load-shedding as a fact of life in South Africa. But in Cape Town, we say, no longer!” he expressed.
The City will reportedly be considering proposals from IPPs for projects that will allow access to an affordable and reliable electricity supply, which will help to eliminate the reliance on Eskom during peak times of use.
“A second tender for dispatchable generation projects over 20MW, which can be brought online in a short space of time, will follow this initial tender. Over time, we will also procure much greater storage capacity to ensure the reliability of our supply and the integrity of our grid,” Hill-Lewis indicated.
He went on to highlight his meeting with Eskom’s CEO, André de Ruyter, where they shared a frank discussion on Eskom’s future, and Cape Town’s role in achieving energy security.
“De Ruyter’s view is that the national government is committed to fully opening the way for municipalities’ procurement of power from the private sector. This is in line with President Ramaphosa’s very refreshing view that he expressed in the State of the Nation Address last week — that the role of the state is to enable economic growth and investment, rather than hindering these things through legislation and red tape.”
During the plenary, he also asked Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe whether the national government is committed to opening the way for municipal generation, and his response was that his department “would not stand in Cape Town’s way.”
Hill-Lewis made a direct appeal to the national government to back Cape Town if they want to prove their commitment to what President Ramaphosa said in SONA.
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Picture: Supplied