Eden shares ambitious plans for going green
Eden mayor Memory Booysen seems determined to leapfrog national programmes by using his District powers to bulldoze material changes to the business, education, and the environment in the southern Cape.
Following the Skills Development and Investment conferences of the recent past, this movement continued last week with the first local Green Energy Summit held at Fancourt in George.
Over two days some 35 presenters treated about 150 participants to detailed if somewhat acronym-heavy and corporate speak-ridden explanations of the need for energy in the Southern Cape to become more self-sufficient and environmentally friendly.
Setting the scene, and providing the most fundamental basis for the need for change was provincial energy security ‘game changer’ Dr Hildegarde Fast who, together with associate Jack Radmore from Green Cape, made the point that Eskom is no longer fit for purpose in being the primary and monopolistic provider of electricity to the country, in addition to being some R300-billion in debt.
“Although load shedding seems to be in the past, the fact remains that Eskom is providing primarily coal-fired steam turbine electricity from aged plants through an obsolete transmission system,” said Fast.
According to several presenters, the need for change has gone beyond the green issue to a point where the old system of centralised generation must be replaced by individual areas responding to their electrical needs by local resources.
CSIR engineer Dr Clinton Carter-Brown pointed out that the succession of Eskom tariff increases, recently averaging 18% per annum, was now resulting in a phenomenon called Utility Death Spiral, where individual private or corporate customers make their own power arrangements resulting in a withdrawal of revenue from both Eskom and municipal grid distributors.
In addition, thanks to our continued use of coal-fired stations, SA is the “dirtiest” generator in the world on both a per capita and per GDP basis – worse than both China and the USA.
Transport evolution specialist Hiten Parmar from Nelson Mandela University made a case for the increasing use of electric vehicles (EVs) which, according to him. are becoming rapidly-more viable for use in South Africa in spite of our dispersed main cities and long distances between centres.
“FVs are coming down in price, their batteries are holding charges for a longer range and often have a life guarantee of up to eight years. When they are no longer optimal for mobility-use they can be used and. if necessary, divided, into second-life batteries for use with solar panels or in deprived rural areas.” he said.
Municipal manager Monde Stratu said after the conference, Eden would create a District Energy Master Plan, consolidating all actions and projects to be included in this initiative.
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