Economic Opportunities
With reference to the reply to question 7 of 1 April 2021 and his budget speech on 16 March 2021 where he stated: “Today I am pleased to announce the six candidate municipalities participating in the Municipal Energy Resilience Project in this financial year”:
- Whether he can clarify the contradicting messages from the written reply and the budget speech; if so, what are the relevant details;
- (a) what is the breakdown of the R68,8 million allocated to beat loadshedding in accordance with the budget allocation of 16 March 2021, (b) how many megawatt will be secured with these funds and (c) by when will any of the participating municipalities be off the Eskom grid?
- Whether he can clarify the contradicting messages from the written reply and the budget speech; if so, what are the relevant details
There is no contradiction; there are only 6 candidate municipalities. The budget speech speaks to the ‘six candidate municipalities participating in the Municipal Energy Resilience Project in this financial year…’ and after listing the six adds ‘ And we are also pleased to be collaborating with the City of Cape Town on the Municipal Energy Resilience Project.’ The City of Cape Town is not a candidate municipality. See the links below for further:
Media statement: https://www.westerncape.gov.za/news/municipal-energy-resilience-project-here-are-six-candidate-municipalities
Budget speech: https://www.westerncape.gov.za/provincial-treasury/news/western-cape-budget-202122
- (a) what is the breakdown of the R68,8 million allocated to beat loadshedding in accordance with the budget allocation of 16 March 2021
- Financial year 2021/22: R28.8 million;
- Financial year 2022/23: R20 million; and
A further R20 million has been placed in Provincial Reserve for 2023/24.
These allocations are specifically toward the Municipal Energy Resilience project to provide support to municipalities in purchasing energy from Independent Power Producers.
(b) how many megawatt will be secured with these funds
The Municipal Energy Resilience (MER) Project is intended to provide the main contribution towards an additional 500MW of lower carbon energy capacity in the Western Cape by 2025.
(c) by when will any of the participating municipalities be off the Eskom grid?
The MER Project is aimed at enabling new renewable energy generation which will allow for an increasingly decentralised system of energy generation and distribution to mitigate the risk of load shedding in the Western Cape. The project is intended to enable municipalities to be able to buffer residents and businesses from the impacts of load shedding. Note that municipalities will still continue to be connected to the national transmission system as the municipal distribution systems will not always have the required capacity at the time required or be located in the required areas.
