Summit seeks innovative energy solutions
PROMISING insight and transformation, an Energy Crisis Summit is being held this week to deliberate on the current state of load-shedding, and to seek solutions to end rolling blackouts.
Set to be held in Durban on
Wednesday, 13 September, the summit is being hosted by the KZN South African Local Government Association (Salga).
Under the theme Defining Mechanisms and Strategies for Municipal Power Procurement and Formulating Plans to Alleviate the Energy Crisis Affecting KZN Municipalities, the summit is dedicated to confronting the urgent energy challenges affecting the province's municipalities.
KZN Salga Chairperson Thami Ntuli said discussions will 'encapsulate the organisation's collective dedication to innovative solutions for the intricate energy challenges woven into our daily existence'.
“Salga conducted an impact of loadshedding survey early this year and found that municipalities are incurring huge losses on unserved energy, as well as massive damage and vandalism to municipal infrastructure that costs billions,” said Ntuli.
Municipal decision-makers, including mayors, deputy mayors, municipal managers, CFOs, heads of technical electricity and energy directors, as well as renewable energy electricity managers will participate in discussions.
“The summit promises insight and transformation. The shortage of generation capacity that leads to loadshedding is the single biggest constraint on South Africa’s economic growth,” said Ntuli.
“We aim to empower KZN municipalities to explore mitigating strategies and plans to end load-shedding. Some of the mechanisms and strategies would be municipal power procurement, wheeling, embedded generation, and changing the electricity business model to include different energy solutions looking into some of the unelectrified areas that are far from the grid.”
The shortage of generation capacity that leads to load-shedding is the single biggest constraint on South Africa’s economic growth
- Thami Ntuli, Salga KZN chair