The City of Cape Town continues to lead the way with energy performance certificates (EPCs) displayed in 69 of our municipal assets, making them compliant with the SANS 1544:2014 regulation. In addition, approximately 50 additional assets have been identified that may require EPCs, after which the majority of our portfolio will be compliant.
‘The project started with a pilot of three buildings in 2021 and now, less than 18 months later, we are the leading municipality in South Africa. This is a vital and important first step in understanding energy use (electricity, gas, solar and other) within our facilities and has allowed us to open up conversations about the importance of driving energy efficiency within our own assets and optimising onsite generation to reach net zero carbon municipal buildings by 2030.
‘The SmartFacility meters continue to monitor energy use within our assets and this continues to be an important part of managing our assets for optimal performance. Almost 90% of the buildings with an EPC received a D-grade or better indicating that the buildings’ energy use is on par or better than the benchmark. Six buildings had solar photovoltaic (PV) systems installed which provided an alternative source of electricity to the relevant buildings while 12 of the 63 buildings had diesel generators supplying the building with back-up electricity during outages and load-shedding.
‘The next step is to drive the journey from EPC to net zero carbon via radical energy efficiency and a roll out of solar PV to our municipal assets while encouraging building and facility managers to improve building performance. The City is aiming to be carbon neutral by 2050 and has committed that all new buildings in Cape Town and as many municipal buildings as possible will be net zero carbon by 2030.
‘Thank you to our Sustainable Energy Markets team which was successful in working across departments to achieve these certificates. I look forward to progressing toward our carbon neutral and net zero carbon goals,’ said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Energy, Councillor Beverley van Reenen.
