The Western Cape Government (WCG) is working with municipalities to help them become loadshedding-free.
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The effort is led by the WCG’s Municipal Energy Resilience (MER) programme, which provides municipalities with funding for foundational energy studies to promote private and public sector power projects.
Premier Alan Winde says the project forms part of a broader goal, known as the Western Cape Energy Resilience Programme, to reduce the impact of loadshedding. Other initiatives include installing containerised solar photovoltaic (PV) cells and battery storage.
‘Our aim with this project is to pilot how we can speedily install containerized solar PV cells with battery storage in these municipalities which would stop loadshedding in these towns. We would like to see these projects launched as soon as possible. It is encouraging to see so many of our municipalities working with us as the Western Cape Government and taking the initiative to address the impact of the worsening blackouts on our citizens and our economy.’
‘Rolling blackouts are unfortunately likely to worsen as we move into winter and our goal as the WCG is to protect as many residents and businesses as possible from the severity of these blackouts. We are looking forward to working with our first phase of local municipalities to make sure that they have electricity systems in place so that when loadshedding starts, municipalities can use a different source of power, like solar PV panels, batteries and more. We are working hard to become the first province to beat loadshedding.’
Municipalities must meet specific criteria in order to qualify for the initiative, such as their technical capabilities.
‘Each town is unique in terms of electricity needs and system requirements, and we will be breaking new ground as electrical systems are designed and implemented,’ says Anton Bredell, provincial local government, environmental affairs and development planning minister.
‘As such, the department will provide technical and project management support to these municipalities. We believe that it is the responsibility of the WCG to invest in infrastructure and systems that will enable the private sector to flourish and at the same time support local governments with their mandate to provide basic and essential services to our residents.’
Mireille Wenger, Western Cape finance and economic opportunities minister says the work done via the MER initiative is crucial to helping communities do research to understand and quantify their energy needs.
‘We are doing our homework to be prepared and plan for new sources of energy in a responsible way. The fact is that we must get things like wheeling frameworks – how to move power from one part of the grid to another, and cost of supply studies as well as Electricity Master Plans in place as they form the very foundation upon which bringing more energy onto the grid, relies.’
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