About
The City of Cape Town is the local municipality which governs Cape Town, one of the largest metropolitan areas in South Africa, covering some 2500km² and with a population of around 3.7million. This multi-cultural city of exceptional beauty, with a 307km coastline and the iconic Table Mountain, was recently voted as one of the seven Natural Wonders of the World and is rated as a global biodiversity hotspot of exceptional diversity.
Cape Town’s energy supply is dominated by electricity provided from the national grid, liquid fuels (mainly petrol and diesel, refined locally from imported crude oil), and a small amount of coal used by industry. Coal-fired electricity provides 85% of electricity fed into the grid, which means that the average carbon emissions attributed to electricity supplied to Cape Town are high – around 1 tonne of carbon dioxide (or equivalent) per MWh of electricity.
Strategy
The City has a range of interventions in place to deal with climate change, one of them being the “Energy and Climate Change Action Plan”.
Energy and Climate Change Action Plan
In May 2010 a full Council voted to approve the Energy and Climate Action Plan. This Action Plan makes the City’s commitments operational, demonstrates its leadership role, and forms the basis on which to prioritise, budget for, implement and monitor and evaluate the City’s energy and climate change programme.
Cape Town’s Energy and Climate Action Plan has 11 objectives, with targets and detailed implementation plans involving 40 programmes and more than 120 projects. The Action Plan is managed and co-ordinated by the City’s Energy and Climate Change Unit, across all directorates and departments. It has top-level support and has been integrated into the City’s management structures and processes.
ENERGY AND CLIMATE ACTION PLAN OBJECTIVES
Objective 1 - City-wide: 10% reduction in electricity consumption by 2012, off a ‘business-as-usual’ baseline
Objective 2 - Council (local authority) operations: 10% reduction in energy consumption by 2012
Objective 3 - 10% renewable and cleaner energy supply by 2020. Meet growth in electricity demand with cleaner/renewable supply, amongst other sources.
Objective 4 - Build a more compact resource-efficient city
Objective 5 - Develop a more sustainable transport system
Objective 6 - Adapt to and build resilience to climate change
Objective 7 - Improve the resilience of vulnerable communities
Objective 8 - Enable local economic development in the energy sector
Objective 9 - Access climate finance
Objective 10 - Raise awareness; promote behaviour change through communication and education
Objective 11 - Recruit staff; undertake research & development; establish data management systems, conduct monitoring and evaluation; update plan annually
Some examples of programmes included in this Action Plan can be seen below. The full list of projects can be found in the City’s ‘Moving Mountains Cape Town’s Action Plan for Energy and Climate Change’ report, found here: www.capetown.gov.za/environmentalreports
Objective 1:
Residential, commercial and industrial efficiency campaigns
The most effective efficiency opportunities are in medium-income to high-income households and commercial buildings. A high-profile and multi-pronged electricity savings campaign, funded in part by the City’s Electricity Department, has been in operation since 2009. The City also runs a Commercial Energy Efficiency Forum with the active participation of more than 400 members. An Industrial Energy Efficiency Forum is being established along similar lines.
Solar water heating
Replacing electric water heaters with combined electric solar water heaters offers enormous potential to reduce electricity consumption. There are more than 400 000 electric hot water cylinders in medium-income to high-income households in the city and a programme is being devised to facilitate households changing to solar water heaters. This will reduce electricity consumption by at least 6% at considerably lower financial cost to households.
Objective 2:
Building retrofits
The City owns many facilities, including at least 80 significant administrative buildings, 100 clinics and 100 libraries. In initiating this programme, 16 buildings were earmarked for consideration, and a project to audit and retrofit four of these has been completed. Results indicate a seven-year payback period on technology interventions, and approximately 22% savings, about half of which are anticipated from the behaviour change programme.
Renewable energy from City operations The City is considering a number of options to use energy from waste. These include waste/sewerage to methane gas, wasteto-energy, and co-generation. The recovery of landfill, organic waste and wastewater treatment plant methane is of added significance given that methane is a major
contributor to the carbon emissions from City-owned facilities.
Public lighting and traffic light retrofits
With national government funding assistance for energy efficiency and demand-side management, the City is retrofitting street lights and traffic lights. In the past two years, the City has retrofitted 11 000 street lights and 7 000 traffic lights, with resulting energy savings of 4 321 MWh per annum.
Technology retrofits implemented include installation of high-efficiency luminaires, control of air-conditioner operating hours, solar water heater installations, thermostat control, and power factor corrections. Solar water heaters have been installed in all 23 nature reserve buildings and 44 clinics. A lighting retrofit project of all City libraries and clinics is also under way. The City’s achievements are being used to promote retrofitting and behaviour-change programmes in residential and commercial buildings.
Objective 3:
Large-scale renewable energy supply
The City pioneered local government support for wind-powered electricity generation through its contract to purchase electricity produced by the Darling wind farm. This is sold by the City to willing buyers who want access to green power through a Green Energy Certificate scheme.
The South African National Government is setting up a new regulatory regime to facilitate independent power producer access to the national grid. As soon as this is possible, the City will be able to extend city residents’ access to green power through the new scheme.
Objective 4
Action Plan objective 4 addresses a number of interrelated challenges relating to spatial planning and transport.
Spatial Development Framework
The City of Cape Town’s Spatial Development Framework (SDF) (endorsed by Council in 2011) has three key strategies:
• planning for employment and improving access to economic opportunities;
• managing urban growth and creating a balance between urban development and environmental protection; and
• building an inclusive, integrated, vibrant city.
The SDF is supported by integrated spatial development plans and environmental management frameworks for each of Cape Town’s eight planning districts. While the SDF has statements supporting densification and development edges, the more detailed Densification Strategy and the Urban Edges Policy are yet to be approved by Council.
Objective 5
Integrated rapid transit (IRT) programme
Cape Town’s IRT Phase 1A, the MyCiTi service, commenced operations in May 2010. This first phase incorporates a network of main and feeder routes, using a fleet of modern, energy efficient buses travelling on dedicated busways. Smaller feeder buses travel with ordinary traffic through suburbs and industrial areas transporting passengers to and from the main routes. The MyCiTi service links Cape Town International Airport with passenger rail, commuter bus, taxi and long-distance transport options. Dedicated bicycle lanes form part of the MyCiTi roll-out. Bus and mini-bus taxi (BMT) lane
Non-motorised transport (NMT)
The City of Cape Town’s vision is to increase NMT as a preferred means of travel. Its goal is to increase cycling and encourage walking by creating a safe and pleasant network of bicycle and pedestrian routes.
Objective 6
Disaster Risk Management has held a Resilience Summit. A Climate Adaptation Plan is in preparation. Research has been done on water management and other activities and fed into the City.
Objective 8
Establishment of a renewable energy sector development agency
In 2010 the City partnered with the Western Cape Provincial Government to establish Green Cape, a sector development agency aiming to unlock the manufacturing and employment potential of the ‘green energy economy’ in the Western Cape.
Objective 10
Commercial Energy Efficiency Forum
This forum provides a platform for commercial building owners/managers to share best practices, innovative
management systems and viable technologies to increase energy efficiency. The forum has seen much success and interest, with substantial attendance at quarterly meetings from more than 200 participating companies.
