Extreme weather and the energy crisis: Accelerate Cape Town hosts MEC Tasneem Essop to discuss solutions for the Western Cape
(14 May 2008) This month the Western Cape has been battered by runaway fires in the Overberg, unusually high waves threatening to flood the Sea Point Promenade and a strong cold front that settled in for more than a week. Coupled with the ongoing energy crisis and ever-rising fuel costs, the time has never been better to address environmentally sustainable responses to climate change and renewable sources of fuel.
“Climate change is no longer in doubt,” confirms Guy Lundy, CEO of Accelerate Cape Town, a private sector-led initiative that works to fast-track long-term economic growth in the Western Cape. “Our province is one of the most vulnerable in South Africa to climate change because not only is the land fairly arid, but also because we depend on fruit crops and the wine industry, which suffer during times of drought and floods. Accelerate Cape Town recognises that it is crucial to tackle these issues now. We invited some of the region’s top business leaders to meet with Provincial MEC for Environment, Planning and Economic Development Tasneem Essop to discuss the challenges their industries and sectors face, as well as how they can partner with the provincial government to find workable and cost-effective solutions.”
“The provincial government has to act in response to climate change. But, more importantly, we have to finds ways to mitigate it. Hence the focus on renewable energy,” explains Essop. There are five main sources of renewable energy: hydropower, solar, wind, geothermal (generated naturally beneath the Earth’s crust) and biomass (derived from plants and animals). “Our plan is to generate 15 per cent of the Western Cape’s energy needs through renewable sources by 2014.
The Western Cape has excellent sources of hydro, solar and wind power which must be harnessed as far as possible. Essop revealed that she has visited St Helena Bay, where work on a new wind farm will commence within 14 months. The project will be co-owned by the St Helena community and German investors.
Another project is the installation of a thousand solar heaters in Hassequa municipality, near Riversdale, which includes training 60 people to maintain them. She also said that the provincial department is currently in talks with national government to roll out 100 000 such heaters in the Western Cape, over and above Eskom’s subsidy system.
“Currently we import all the technology to create renewable energy, even the technologies that were developed here, like the more efficient photovoltaic cells that were developed by a South African professor who sold the rights to a German company,” says Lundy. But there are signs that local business is realising the value of green technology. One example, from Fay Kajee of British American Tobacco, is that the BAT cigarette factory in Paarl will be converted into a plant to manufacture solar panels. Other participants agreed that the current electricity emergency had spurred their efforts to find business opportunities in this sector.
Essop explained that the provincial government wants to establish a Renewable Energy Cluster, which will focus on promoting the renewable energy industry sector. Coupled with this, her department is also negotiating a “feed-in” tariff with the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa), which will make the production and sale of this form of energy more viable. Furthermore, in order to encourage property developers to be as environmentally conscious as possible, as well as promote higher densities and energy-efficient buildings, the provincial government is considering making energy efficiency and the proven use of renewable energy sources among the preconditions for the approval of future developments.
One positive on the environmental scorecard is that the province is not a big emitter of carbon because it doesn’t have much heavy industry. “Foreign investors are seeing us as a place to invest in renewable energy projects because they have seen the political will to tackle the problem as well as the provincial government’s prioritisation of the sector,” notes Essop. “We could become one the leading renewable energy players in the world, especially if business, academia and government work together.”
A crucial part of this relationship, points out Accelerate Cape Town board member Mike Thompson , is that many find the jargon – terms like “carbon credits” or “offsetting emissions” – confusing. He suggested that educating stakeholders about the green industry is imperative to its success.
Deloitte’s Andrew Farrant agreed, especially about unlocking the process around carbon trading. “South Africa is way behind the BRIC countries [Brazil, Russia, India, China] on this. There are overseas investors who can spend on green investments here in order to offset their emissions elsewhere,” he explained. He also noted technology should be made as robust as possible because of South Africa’s unique and harsh environmental conditions. “For example, off our coast there is a five-metre per second current that could be harnessed for hydropower. The problem is that that the technology required degrades very quickly, making the project unviable.” Solving problems like these could make the Western Cape a leader in green innovations.
Glynn Morris, of Agama Energy, believes that corporates should come together in a separate body, along the lines of the Green Power Market Development Group in the United States, to tackle climate change and the energy crisis. “They could also support their own staff to become green, perhaps by subsidising the replacement of traditional geysers with solar heaters in their homes. The economies of scale if companies co-operated on this would obviously bring the costs down.”
Lundy reiterated that all stakeholders in the region should work together on innovative ways to develop green technology more cheaply and make it more reliable.
“One of Accelerate Cape Town’s key functions is to bring together the most influential stakeholders in the city region to find solutions for long-term growth and competitiveness. The provincial government has plans for the development of a renewable energy sector and legislation, and the tackling issues of climate change. We can take advantage of the emerging ‘environmental economy’ and find practical solutions as to how the region can position itself as a global hub of innovation in the renewable energy sector.”
The meeting was attended by Tasneem Essop and Nils Flaaten (Provincial Department of Environment, Planning and Economic Development), James Newlands (Ernst & Young), Andrew Farrant (Deloitte & Touche), Denis Lillie (Murray & Roberts), Andrew Cole (Close Fund Services), Rose Keanly (Old Mutual), Anthony Costa (Nedbank), Mo Kajee (Sekunjalo), Fay Kajee (BAT), Vernon de Vries (Distell), Tim Bashall (KPMG), Laurie Wener (Pam Golding Properties), Glynn Morris (Agama Energy), Mike van Coller (NMC Construction), and Mike Thompson and Guy Lundy (Accelerate Cape Town).
ENDS
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