The City of Cape Town says one of its latest initiatives to mitigate load shedding, is the largest power procurement tender yet which will see the City approach the open market tomorrow (Wednesday 29 March) for around 500 MW of dispatchable power.
This was among the plans shared on Thursday 23 March when the City hosted local tourism businesses for an engagement on the current load shedding crises.
On Thursday, stakeholders from the tourism industry and small businesses filled the conference hall at the Cape Sun Hotel in the city centre.
Beverley van Reenen, the City’s Mayco member for energy, says besides bringing more renewable energy sources into the grid, they aim to build an affordable, reliable and resilient power supply for residents and businesses.
“The purpose of this meeting is to see what it is that we as a City have to offer to our customers. And to talk about what are our programmes to protect customers but also to end load shedding over time… We are heading there and we are on track in terms of the programmes that we are going to roll out. We have given ourselves 40 months.”
Van Reenen encourages businesses to take advantage of the City’s plans to start paying cash for power. The Power Heroes programme is scheduled to start in June.
The initiative was highlighted during Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana’s announcement that businesses could reduce their taxable income by 125% of the cost of an investment in renewables.
Changes to the Bounce Back Loan Guarantee Scheme will also ensure solar-related loans for small and medium enterprises.
Van Reenen says: “Those who have PV (photovoltaics) panels on their roof, come and talk to us. We need people with PVs to participate in our programmes so if they wish to sell their excess power – we have a process where they need to register – back to the City, then they can participate.
“That, in itself, will assist the City to end load shedding over time.”
She says the current feed-in tariff is 78,98 c/kWh (excl VAT) with an added incentive of 25 c/kWh (excl VAT).
James Vos, the City’s Mayco member for economic growth, says: “We have decided to bring all these businesses in one room so that we can share with them our energy plan. We are installing our own solar plant in Cape Town to generate energy. We are finding ways for residents and businesses to benefit financially from the energy that they produce. The City will pay people in cash so that we can get the excess electricity because then we power up a whole city.”
He adds: “We want to showcase to tourism businesses the ecosystem because we want to make this industry sustainable, resilient, so that in future these businesses can become completely self-sustainable. My mission is to secure a tourism-related job in every household in Cape Town. We can only do it if businesses thrive.”
Enver Duminy, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for Cape Town Tourism, says: “What we take away from this meeting is that there are solutions from both the City and GreenCape and that the industry can also see that there are solution providers who can assist them, whether they are a small business, a B&B, a tour operator or a big hotel chain, to find ways and solutions to address their energy crises at this stage.”
GreenCape is a non-profit organisation that drives the widespread adoption of economically viable green economy solutions.
Duminy says load shedding is affecting them badly.
“It does affect the preparations for visitor experiences. If you have a cable car going up it needs to have electricity to bring people back down, you don’t want those interruptions to affect people.”
He adds: “What we are hoping for is that we have solutions that can be implemented by small businesses, and attractions that can reduce the impact of load shedding on their businesses.
“Tourism is about selling hope and confidence in the destination. If our industry doesn’t have hope and confidence, how can we convince visitors?
“We will ask the City to continue to give us updates and progress reports of what they shared with us.”
