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SA’s energy sector is outdated and in need of reform says de Lille

City of Cape Town (COCT) mayor, Patricia de Lille, has reasserted plans to take the minister of energy to court.

Speaking at the Cape Town Climate Change Coalition yesterday, de Lille said that COCT will be taking the minister to court so that the city can purchase energy from independent power producers (IPP), or any provider it chooses.

“This will be a complex legal battle but it must be understood that we are doing this not just because we want to buy electricity from IPPs, but because we believe that the whole institutional regime governing energy in the country is completely outdated and needs to be reformed,” remarked de Lille.

The mayor added that the COCT wants its citizens to have more choice when it comes to consuming and purchasing power. In light of this de Lille says that the city intends to pursue this using all available avenues.

de Lille went on to detail how the COCT is dealing with climate change and some of the measures it has put in place to address energy consumption.

“The lighting retrofitting of the City’s main administrative building, the Civic Centre, has been completed where 20 000 light fittings have been upgraded to LED technology, with occupancy sensors linked to timers and daylight harvesting,” said the mayor.

This coupled with the fact that 1 500 traffic lights, and 25 000 street lights have been retrofitted with LED bulbs should decrease energy consumption in the city by 1.2 megawatts. This translates into a saving of R6 million in the first year and R36 million over the next five.

The mayor concluded by saying that the city has considerable work planned for the next five years to both mitigate and adapt to climate change.

“We fundamentally have the opportunity to improve resource efficiencies in our local economy, whether it is water, energy, waste or biodiversity.”

[Source – IOL] [Image – Pixabay]

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