The South African Local Government Association (Salga) plans on resolving energy issues vexing municipalities across KwaZulu-Natal at its upcoming energy summit in uMhlanga, north of Durban next week.
The summit, which Salga plans to host from November 2 to 3, will look at methods of procurement among municipalities and how they can better deal with energy challenges.
Municipal heads, mayors, CFO’s and the like will gather at the Coastlands Hotel in uMhlanga for the two-day event.
“Amid Energy crisis in South Africa due to load shedding, the Salga KZN Energy Summit aims to empower KZN municipalities to explore mitigating strategies and plans to end load shedding.
“Salga conducted the impact of load shedding survey early this year and found that municipalities are incurring huge losses on unserved energy, massive damage and vandalism to municipal infrastructure that cost billions of Rand,” Salga said.
Meanwhile, Minister in the Presidency for Electricity, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said this week that there are 66 GW of renewable energy projects in the pipeline, but a significant investment will be needed.
Ramokgopa told Parliament on Tuesday that R390 billion in investment is needed to expand the energy network by about 14,000km over the next decade.
In terms of renewable energy, the minister said the private sector has shown an insatiable appetite to enter the market.
Developments at Kusile power station means the four Units will provide a total of 3,200 MW of base load by December, Ramokgopa said, while Unit 6 is expected to get back into cycle in August 2024.
“It is estimated that more than R390 billion will be required over the next decade to meet the demand for grid capacity, largely due to the increase in generation capacity through renewable energy projects following the various bid windows,” said Ramokgopa.
IOL