As part of the Western Cape’s promise to eliminate load shedding, the DA-led provincial government has assisted 24 local municipalities and the City of Cape Town with their small-scale embedded generation (SSEG) projects. This was revealed in a response to my oral question to provincial Minister of Finance and Economic Opportunities, David Maynier.
Department of Economic Development and Tourism (DEDAT) and its partners have launched the Municipal Energy Resilience (MER) project which aims at upscaling and assisting Western Cape municipalities in procuring wholesale electricity from Independent Power Producers (IPPs). The procurement of energy can be a complex, challenging task, and municipalities do not always have the necessary policies, plans, resources, and procurement expertise in order to purchase their own electricity.
However, the national gazetting of regulations to allow for municipalities to generate and procure their own electricity independently of Eskom is a move in the right direction toward the Western Cape being the first province to eliminate load shedding – a promise on which we will hold the Premier to account in his Western Cape Recovery Plan tabled last week.
MER’s aim is to offer structured support to municipalities in navigating these complexities in order to realise new, more cost-effective energy and create economic opportunities for their communities. The project is also aiming to improve municipalities’ revenues by balancing energy security with creating more secure, reliable and cost-effective future electricity price paths.
These 24 municipalities are poised to take advantage of the recent regulations that allow municipalities in good financial standing to procure their own energy. In order to grow the economy, energy security is paramount and will lead to reduced business costs, build business confidence, and help to attract investment for the province. That is why next week the Standing Committee on Finance, Economic Development and Tourism, which I chair, will be visiting the Garden Route and engaging with municipalities on their renewable energy and SSEG projects.
The DA in the Western Cape is committed to producing reliable, cost-effective energy and creating economic opportunity for residents of the Western Cape.
