Western Cape Premier Alan Winde has vowed better energy security for the province, noting reports that South Africa will continue to be plagued by power cuts.
Former Eskom executive Alwie Lester, now part of the Western Cape Government (WCG), and executive director of energy at the City of Cape Town, Kadri Nassiep, joined Winde in a visit to Macassar-based business Taylor Technology on 3 January 2023.
This visit was to enable the team to determine what measures small to medium-sized businesses were implementing to mitigate the impact of Eskom’s ongoing power cuts.
WCG estimates that rolling blackouts may have cost up to R12.3 billion over a year, a severe blow to the province’s economy. MEC for Finance and Economic Opportunities, Mireille Wenger provided the data after tabling the 2022/2023 Provincial Economic Review and Outlook (PERO) report, where load shedding was named “a barrier to economic growth for a number of sectors”.
Winde says making the Western Cape more energy resilient would remain a top priority for the provincial government this year.
“In the last year, we had over 3,630 hours of load shedding across South Africa and we need to make sure that we mitigate it,” he says. “Cape Town can already mitigate two levels of load shedding and I’m looking forward to those tenders going out in other municipalities like Stellenbosch, like George, like Saldanha Bay and Mossel Bay.”
Stressing that economic recovery and job creation could not flourish against the backdrop of these debilitating energy struggles, the Premier noted his grave concerns about the risk to the economy, saying “We need to make sure that the focus is on getting ourselves as energy resilient as possible in the province.”