Councils to lobby for their energy goals

Municipalities want to be able to buy and distribute renewable energy as part of cost-cutting efforts and are to mount a lobbying campaign to achieve their energy goals.

They plan to take this route after abandoning court action in which they would have sought a declaratory order reaffirming their authority and responsibilities in providing power to residents.

Councils and Eskom are locked in a debt dispute, with the power utility threatening to bypass municipalities by providing electricity to residents directly.

The departments of public enterprises and co-operative governance will hold meetings with Eskom this week to discuss potential long-term legal reforms that will empower councils to provide electricity directly to residents.

Nhlanhla Ngidi, the South African Local Government Association’s (Salga’s) specialist for electricity and energy municipal infrastructure services, said in Parliament on Tuesday that he would meet with the directors-general of cooperative governance and public enterprises in Cape Town.

Salga, Eskom and the two departments would hold further meetings in Pretoria.

They would meet to get clarity on reticulation, street lighting, compound interest and a lack of tariff parity, said Ngidi.

Ngidi said municipalities were considering lobbying, through Salga, to buy and own renewable energy and energy infrastructure to allow them to provide electricity efficiently.

“Small-scale, embedded generation legislative changes are urgently needed,” he said.

Municipal Infrastructure Support Agent acting CEO Ntandazo Vimba said the agency offered to assist councils that distributed electricity. A committee that included the energy regulator and other parties “was established as an institutional vehicle for the strategy’s rollout”, said Vimba. However, this did not get past the pilot phase because of a lack of funding.