Cape Town –
Going green has saved the city council more than a R110 million over seven years. A grant from the Department of Energy has allowed the city council to spend R162m on improving energy efficiency within its operations since 2009.
Over the same period, the city council has saved R110m on electricity thanks to the efficiency measures, said Sumaya Mahomed, a senior officer in the city council’s department of environmental resource management. These savings come from replacing street lights and traffic lights with energy-efficient LEDs, and taking measures to improve efficiency in the city’s buildings.
Of the R162m invested, R100m was provided by the Department of Energy as part of an initiative to help fund municipalities wanting to save on electricity in the long run. “Every single kilowatt hour we save is good for the country because it means less money needs to be spent on coal powered stations and other sources,” Mahomed said.
With Eskom’s tariff increases and South Africa’s looming electricity shortage, the council is trying to reduce power usage in its own facilities.
Mahomed said the council’s street lights, traffic lights, buildings, pumps and fleets accounted for 3.8 percent of electricity usage in Cape Town.
“The City of Cape Town has an important role to lead by example. We can’t be asking our residents and our commercial and industry sectors to reduce their consumption if we are not leading by example.”
The savings would be passed on to the city’s residents.
“These savings are then utilised elsewhere.
“There are a lot of communities that need libraries and other services,” she said.
Going forward, the council plans to focus its attention on energy efficiency at waste management plants, and also to expand its mission to make buildings more power-friendly.
“The city council has 8 000 facilities. Of these, 90 are large corporate buildings.
“We have retrofitted 60 percent of (the corporate buildings) with Smart Meters and LEDs and three of these have solar panels installed.”
The Department of Energy took the media on a tour of the Gallows Hill Traffic Department in Green Point, one of the city council’s buildings that has been made energy efficient.
All the lighting in the building has been replaced with LED lights, which don’t use up as much electricity as fluorescents and have reduced the building’s consumption by 18 percent - that is 107 000kWh a year.
An automatic meter reader was installed which allows the building manager to monitor power usage in real time.
Since Gallows Hill underwent its green makeover, it has reduced its total energy consumption by 21 percent.
In addition to cutting back on consumption, the council installed solar panels on the roof of the traffic department.
The small solar installation of 42 panels generates around 20 000kWh a year, further reducing the building’s consumption off the grid by 3 percent.
The tour was a precursor to African Utility Week, which opens today at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.