On Thursday 4 April 2024, the Mayoral Committee Member for Energy, Councillor Beverley van Reenen, delivered a keynote address at the 3rd Annual Electricity Wheeling Conference and discussed the City’s progress, learnings and successes thus far. Councillor Van Reenen also discussed the City’s progress in mitigating up to four stages of Eskom’s load-shedding.
Wheeling, a City-enabled means of third parties selling electricity to each other using the City’s existing grid infrastructure, is just one of the City’s power supply diversification initiatives.
‘I am particularly delighted to be here today, a year after speaking at the second edition of this conference to share with you some of the progress we have made toward achieving our immediate objective of protecting Cape Town residents and businesses from four stages of Eskom’s load-shedding by 2026. The culmination of which, is to secure Cape Town’s energy needs through renewable energy programmes, reducing our reliance on Eskom and embracing a thriving energy market here in Cape Town that can be used as a model for success by likeminded local administrations in South Africa and across the African continent.
‘In order to realise those objectives, we must understand and appreciate the context through which we operate. Here, in the City of Cape Town, we understand South Africa’s energy challenges and fully appreciate what ought to be done to, in part, mitigate against their effects but also to ensure that we protect residents and businesses from the worst of load-shedding. This is why we continue to invest in the upkeep of the Steenbras Pumped Hydro Storage plant that enables us to shield our City from two stages of load-shedding and through our various other renewable energy investment initiatives that form a key part of the City’s 10-year R120 bn capital and infrastructure investment portfolio.
‘The City of Cape Town’s Energy Strategy makes a firm commitment to build an energy resilient City where all residents and businesses have access to reliable, affordable and carbon neutral energy. In line with this vision, the City has established a series of programmes geared toward facilitating market interventions, which include engagement with independent power producers through our strict supply chain management processes to procure energy and seek sustainable and efficient alternatives to the status quo.
‘Overall, Cape Town’s power supply diversification strategy aims to add up to one gigawatt of independent power supply to end load-shedding in the city over time, with the first 650 Megawatts of this within five years. The City’s wheeling pilot continues to produce excellent results and achieve key milestones. Our wheeling pilot is organised in six coherent work packages that set the basis for contractual agreements, municipal wheeling and associated feed-in tariffs, metering and data requirements, wheeling implementation, which includes contracts and metering vetting as well as testing and evaluation. In keeping with the theme of this conference, it is not only an established view of the City that private energy producers and open market interventions are central to protecting South Africa’s economy from load-shedding, it is also expressed in our actions that are informed by our widely endorsed Energy Strategy.
‘I would like to conclude by reiterating what I said here before. Cape Town is yet again demonstrating to the rest of the country that political will coupled with a sound administrative leadership that is underscored by a heightened sense of civic duty and an open commitment to partnership with the business community is a catalyst for growth and development,’ said Councillor Van Reenen.Â
The City’s process of delivering on the Mayor’s Energy Priority Programme to end load-shedding is under way and includes:
∙       R220 million on embedded independent power purchase
∙       R288 million on the Power Heroes programme which looks at voluntary power reduction in return for an incentive
∙       Estimate R1 billion investment in Steenbras (over the next nine years) subject to all due diligence and legal and regulatory processes
∙       R640 million on solar PV; R53 million Cash for Power programme, which involves selling excess power back to the City
∙       R50 million in Battery Storage
∙       R32 million on waste-to-energy
