CITY of Tshwane Mayor Cilliers Brink outlined the city's energy master plan to reduce Tshwane's dependence on Eskom and alleviate the burden of load shedding.
Brink told the media at the Rooiwal Power Station in Tshwane on Monday, 18 September, that if the city doesn't procure 1 000 megawatts in three years to come, it will be in trouble.
He said despite all the destructions and disruptions the city had, the two critical issues that remain for the city are finances and energy supply, adding that the two are national issues which need to be attended to.
"Every day rolling blackouts make us poor. Last year, the City of Tshwane made a loss in excess of R2 billion on the sale of electricity," he said.
Furthermore, many municipalities find themselves selling electricity at a loss. He said criminals notice when the power is off and strip cables in networks.
He said the city is paying the price today for the lack of investment in infrastructure.
On the Energy Task Team, the mayor said security on the energy baseload independent of Eskom and developing an energy mix master plan that will be informed by techno-economic energy modelling with scientific recommendations of renewable energy technologies suitable for the city.
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"Enabling the policy, legal and regulatory framework to finalise the embedded generation policy and the wheeling policy, framework and guidelines to enable the plethora of requests to wheel power through the Tshwane grid," he said.
He said through the C40 Climate Action Implementation Programme, we are looking at solar generation for our social housing programme. He said the above-listed interventions are, in part, reliant on the two existing power stations for which the city is licensed to generate power, namely the Rooiwal and Pretoria West Power Stations.
Divisional head of City Sustainability at the office of the mayor, Sello Mphaga, said: "In terms of the time frame following the council resolution on Tuesday, 12 September, the immediate step is to go on a public participation to assess whether we get approval. Depending on the outcome of the public participation, we will take back to council at the end of October and get an indication whether council allow us to continue."
