City Mayoral Committee Member for Energy, Councillor Beverley van Reenen, hosted a World Bank delegation to the City’s unique Steenbras Hydro Pumped Storage Scheme as the City and the World Bank looks to deepening its partnership. Not only is the Steenbras plant used to protect City-supplied customers from up to two stages of Eskom’s load-shedding where possible, but it plays a key role in the City’s plans to protect residents from up to four stages of load-shedding by 2026. Major investment in Steenbras is under way and planned.
The World Bank delegation, headed by Dr Victoria Kwakwa, World Bank Vice President for Eastern and Southern Africa, toured the Steenbras facility to get first-hand experience of one of the most unique City energy offerings. It followed a meeting with Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis that came on the back of his recent engagements with the World Bank in Washington.
‘The World Bank has been supporting the City through targeted technical assistance to a number of directorates including Energy, Future Planning and Resilience, and Water and Sanitation. We are all very excited to grow this partnership and to make sure Cape Town is fully supported in all regards as we move to implementing our plan to provide load-shedding protection of up to four stages where possible within the next two years. This forms part of a broader infrastructure investment and technical assistance drive that the City is on as we build the City of Hope. The confidence that global partners such as the World Bank displays in Cape Town is vital for delivering on our R120 billion ten-year infrastructure portfolio, which includes projects to enhance resilience and build energy and water security.
‘Our short-term load-shedding mitigation plans will be achieved largely through a mix of the use of the Steenbras Hydro Pumped Storage Scheme (up to two stages); 500MW of dispatchable energy and demand management programmes, such as Power Heroes and load curtailment,’ said Councillor Van Reenen.
Power supply diversification initiatives snapshot:
- Demand management programmes:
- a)UNDER WAY: Large Power Users (LPUs) curtailment
- b)NEWLY LAUNCHED: Power Heroes: a voluntary programme for households and small commercial customers that enables remote switching of power-hungry appliances such as geysers and pool pumps.
- NEW: IPP 3 tender issued: The total capacities envisaged 300 MW of dispatchable/ reserve power capacity and 200 MW of self-dispatchable power capacity. The contract period is three years, and is subject to a Section 33 process and the closing date for tender submissions is 8 April 2024.
- UNDER WAY: Embedded IPP renewable energy (200MW)– with the goal to diversify electricity suppliers for more cost-effective electricity
- UNDER WAY: Dispatchable IPP Programme (up to 500MW)– a key load-shedding mitigation mechanism, with 10-year power contracts for dispatchable power plants
- UNDER WAY: Wheeling (up to 350MW)– a City-enabled means of third parties selling electricity to each other using existing grid infrastructure
- DONE: Private Small-Scale Embedded Generation (up to 100 MW) mechanism –Residential and commercial customers are enabled to generate electricity for their own use and be credited for excess generation
- UNDER WAY: City-owned SSEG (up to 20MW)from the Atlantis plant (7MW) and solar PV at City facilities (13MW)
