W Cape Government, George Mayor outline plans to tackle energy crisis

GEORGE NEWS - Premier Alan Winde held his second Energy Digicon on Thursday 9 March. He was joined by George Mayor Leon van Wyk and the Premier’s special advisor on energy, Alwie Lester.

The objective of the digicons is to keep the public informed of what the Western Cape Government (WGC) and its partners are doing to tackle the ongoing blackouts, which continue to significantly damage our economy.

Winde said citizens deserve transparency around the provincial government's efforts to combat the energy crisis. "Everything we have at our disposal needs to be considered to end this crisis."

Commenting on the appointment of Dr Kgosientsho Ramakgopa as the national Electricity Minister, Winde said, "We need energy experts, not more politicians, to help us grow our electricity generation capabilities. While I do not believe we need another Cabinet post to be created to deal with the power crisis, I am very willing to work with Minister Ramakgopa to end this crisis.”

Lester outlined some of the objectives of the Western Cape Government Energy Resilience Plan: to reduce the impact of blackouts on businesses and citizens and to facilitate a lower reliance on Eskom through the following short, medium and long-term measures:

Load-shedding Relief Programme – this will amongst others see emergency packs consisting of power packs distributed to indigent households;
Provincial Integrated Resource Plan – this includes a basket of options including green and alternative energy sources;
Demand Side Management Programme – the public needs to play its part in taking the strain off of the power grid by reducing power usage wherever they can, but crucially this has to be aligned around incentivizing and rewarding actions taken to reduce usage;
New Emergency Generation Programme;
Network Development Programme

In his presentation, Mayor Leon van Wyk detailed George Municipality’s Energy Resilience Plan. The plan includes:

Prioritising the municipality’s consumption through own generation and demand management – this would entail self-generation of up to 3 MW and reducing own power consumption by 4MW through numerous initiatives;
Commissioning of three solar power plants to come online between 2023 and 2025; and
Battery storage facility

"Through these interventions, the municipality will be able to cushion residents from several stages of power cuts. The digicons give us an opportunity to discuss the enormous challenges that we face with the level of load-shedding imposed on us. It is extremely valuable for George Municipality to have been able to participate.

"We are able to share our strategy in terms of making us more energy resilient and ensuring that we are able to assist our residents with renewable energy. We are being very proactive in making sure that we have put our plans together both in the short and long term."

Winde said the province's municipalities have been hard at work drawing up their own energy plans.

"We must confront this disaster both at provincial government and local government levels. It is only by working together through partnerships that we will be able to end the blackouts.”