The much-anticipated Tshwane inaugural energy summit, which started at the SunBet Arena in Menlyn on Wednesday, has been hailed as a crucial platform for crafting solutions to challenges of electricity supply in the City of Tshwane.
This was shared by speakers on the first day of the two-day summit hosted by the Tshwane Economic Development Agency (Teda) in collaboration with the City.
Prominent role-players in the energy sector, including representatives from the Tshwane business chamber, black business council, potential investors and government officials were in attendance to deliberate on energy challenges confronting the municipality.
The chief executive of the municipal parastatal Teda, Dr Lardo Stander, expressed hope that the high-level delegates at the summit would deliver valuable inputs to secure energy security for the city.
“We are happy to host you here and this is the reason why we are hosting the Tshwane inaugural energy summit to deliver 1000 megawatts for the city.”
Tshwane Mayor Cilliers Brink remarked that the summit would give experts in the energy sector an opportunity to make contributions on how the capital city could harness energy independently of Eskom.
He said the summit provided a platform for the City “to draw from ideas and expertise and say how we can change our policies in order to get as much of our power independent of Eskom. Our goal is 1000 megawatts of 2600 independent of Eskom by 2026”.
While he commended Eskom for making efforts to prevent load shedding for more than 70 days, he said more energy was needed to grow the economy.
“We need the economy to grow and one of the essential ingredients of economic growth is the abundant supply of affordable, dispatchable and clean energy. And metros have to do everything in our power in order to procure and to build as much of that energy as possible,” he said.
He said the City was joining hands with other spheres of governments, including the City of Cape Town, to see how it could get out of Eskom as soon as possible.
“We know that South Africa has been an energy monopoly under Eskom and that precipitated the energy crisis and, as the engine rooms of economic development in South Africa, the cities must make other plans,” Brink said.
Participants are expected to share their thoughts on the City’s state of energy and the energy action plan that includes an energy mix of the City and the recommissioning of Rooiwal and Pretoria West power stations status and the next steps.
The round-table discussion will be hosted with a view to discuss alignment between the national government, the Gauteng provincial government and the City of Tshwane’s energy action and response plans.
Importantly, according to the organisers, another focus will be on the City’s climate action plan public-private collaboration to accelerate sustainable urban development.
It is expected that the session on a climate action plan will deliberate on initiatives from international institutions, national government initiatives and the private sector aimed at building sustainable cities and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Recently, Tshwane’s divisional head of the municipal sustainability unit, Sello Mphaga, said the City climate action plan aimed to have up to 80% of its energy generated from clean sources by 2050.
“By 2050 we envisage that up to 80% of our energy needs to be from renewables, so we are saying that the exercise we envisage to be rolling out in the coming months should be putting us among cities that are very progressive,” he said.
Pretoria News