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Largest in South Africa Cities are preparing to get their own power after the Energy Ministry approved earlier this month to let them disconnect from the state-owned company that has subjected cities to cuts for the past 13 years.
Johannesburg and Cape Town, which have a combined population of around 10 million people, plan to diversify away from electricity produced primarily from coal by Eskom towards more sustainable sources such as solar energy and energy generated from landfill gas. .
“The city is looking for 300MW of renewable energy,” Kadri Nassiep, Cape Town’s executive director of energy and climate change, said by email. “If you get all the clarity and the plans move forward, we could start to see further diversification of our energy resources as a city in about three to five years.”
In addition to improving security of supply, the measure will allow cities to boost their fight against climate change using energy that does not generate greenhouse gas emissions. Still, it will cut revenue for Eskom, which is struggling to pay off a R488 billion debt.
“Internationally, many cities are at the forefront of dealing with climate change disasters and have therefore adopted proactive responses to climate change,” Lauren Hermanus, director of Adapt, a South African company, said in an interview. provides consulting services on sustainable energy. . “We are also aware of the operational, governance and fiscal challenges related to Eskom, clearer in our episodes of load shedding.”
The worst polluter
South Africa produces the same amount of greenhouse gases as the United Kingdom, which has an economy eight times larger. Eskom, which operates a fleet of coal-fired power plants, is the worst polluter in the country and generates around 40% of greenhouse gas emissions.
Cape Town plans to build a solar photovoltaic power plant by the end of fiscal 2023, in addition to sourcing additional sustainable power, Nassiep said. The city took the Energy Ministry to court this year to obtain the right to obtain its own energy. The judge ruled that further negotiations should take place with the government.
“We intend to submit a tender for renewable power plants integrated into our grid next year and we would like to obtain renewable energy from large independent power producers as soon as possible,” he said.
Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city and financial center, is considering obtaining power from solar plants and landfills, where gas from rotting garbage can be used to produce electricity.
The initiative is primarily driven by Eskom’s unreliability, the city’s commitment to reducing carbon emissions and the need to protect customers from rising energy prices, said Isaac Mangena, a spokesman for the company from Johannesburg City Power utilities. “City Power is still in the early stages of the initiative and we expect the process to take at least 2 years,” he said. – Reported by Gemma Gatticchi and Monique Vanek, (c) 2020 Bloomberg LP
