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GEORGE NEWS & VIDEO - Eden District Municipality Executive Mayor Memory Booysen is by buoyed by the general theme and central ideas forthcoming at the Green Energy Summit held earlier this month - where heavy-weights in the solar and wind technology underlined their commitment to being part of the creation of affordable energy in a sustainable manner.
Important roleplayers present at the Summit included - representatives of the CSIR; Thebe Solar Investments (who are financing the Dysseldorp Solar Energy project); MBHE African Power Pty Ltd (who are behind the George Biomass Plant in George); Port Elizabeth company - Microcare Solar, Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and Salga where there to put forward an action plan under Green Cape's Jack Radmore.
Booysen welcomed the "game changer" which coincided with the Summit and which entailed the Ramaphosa government giving the nod of approval for Eskom to enter into agreements with Independent Power Producers (IPP) and the Department of Energy.
This governmental green light came at the start of the Summit and bodes well for the future of green energy.
Stabilize electricity prices
The general idea that emerged at the Summit - is that when IPP's have a surfeit/oversupply of energy this will be fed into the Eskom grid. Green industry roleplayers present at the Summit felt that this should stabilize the price of electricity.
The organization Undoing abuse of Tax (Outa) is objecting against Eskom's proposed tariff hikes which will hit the middle-class taxpayers hardest. (Eskom’s proposed increase to municipalities is 27,5%, which will have to be recovered mainly from the higher income groups. Eskom wants a 19,9% price increase, but this is the increase overall to Eskom’s electricity revenue, so different tariffs will increase at different rates.
This means that for all but the very low electricity users, the bills will go up much more than 20%).
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Waste to energy
Eden DM's project for turning household waste at PetroSA's regional waste sight into (bio)energy is in advanced stages of planning and more than one company has shown interest in being involved said Mayor Booysen.
He added that it will be a pilot plant and the first of its kind in SA. A presentation was done to the Provincial Parliament's Standing Committee on 10 April 2018.
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