The energy crisis in the Western Cape has highlighted the importance of sustainable energy supplies to the economic growth and development of the area. The Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning (D: EA&DP) developed the Sustainable Energy Strategy and Programme of Action to “take stock” of the energy crises in the province and to address the challenge of developing secure sources of cleaner, non-polluting and renewable energy. The strategy aims to:

• Support economic and social development, poverty alleviation and infrastructure development;
• Address environmental issues such as air quality, energy conservation and climate change;
• Foster the development of a clean energy sector; and
• Support and enhance provincial investment programmes in an effective manner.

The Provincial Government’s mandate to develop the strategy stems from its clear mandate around economic development, housing, provision of public transport and environmental protection. The use of energy impacts on other natural resources, such as water, and the Province must take a more sustainable approach to resource consumption in general, with energy being one of them.

Although various national efforts are underway to increase energy provision to the Western Cape, the Provincial Government believes that additional efforts need to be made to address the energy challenges facing the Province through determined energy demand management and support for a mix of renewable and clean energy technologies, including the challenges of:

• Providing access to energy to all citizens in the province.
• Addressing health, social and environmental problems associated with our current energy use patterns.
• Reducing the province’s carbon footprint.

Energy concerns are not isolated to a single sector or government department – energy supports all aspects of industry, commerce, residential, healthcare, social development, economic development, transport, etc and renewable energy principles and strategies need to be incorporated into the strategies affecting all these areas.

As such, it is essential that the Provincial Government’s approach to energy planning be integrated into the following key strategies and plans:

• Ikapa Growth & Development Framework
• Spatial Development Framework
• Strategic Infrastructure Plan
• Sustainable Development Implementation Plan
• Micro-economic Development Strategy
• Western Cape Climate Change Response Strategy and Action Plan

Targets have been set by the Provincial Government to enable renewable energy to play a significant role in energy generation in the province. Achieving the targets required to mitigate CO₂ emissions and to allow economic growth, improve energy efficiency and simply maintain power security is an enormous challenge. These targets can only be achieved if there is an aggressive campaign to pursue energy efficiency measures in tandem with the renewable energy measures.

The Provincial Government will ensure these objectives are realised through the Plan of Action with the targets set out below:

The Future Energy Scenarios that have been developed have helped shape the energy strategy in a significant manner. A range of implementation scenarios was modelled to assess their impact and feasibility. To reach a target of 15% of renewable energy by 2014 the Province will need to focus on implementing a Plan of Action based on the scenario of ‘High Renewables, Energy Conscious Demand’.

The scenarios assessed the main areas of energy use in each sector and designed models to establish what can be done to reduce energy use. For example:

Transport

• Modal shifts
  • Encourage a move to a better public transport system
• Taxi shift to diesel
  • Public transport vehicles should use diesel

Industry

• Energy efficiency
  • Efficiency improvements in lighting, motors, improved boiler efficiency, etc.
• Fuel switching
  • Changing from coal to natural gas

Commerce and government

• Lighting
  
  • Replacing light bulbs with more efficient compact lights (CFLs)
• Heating, ventilation and cooling (HVAC)
  
  • Improve efficiency by user behaviour changes

Residential

• Solar water heaters
  
  • 10% of electric geysers to be replaced by SWH
• Residential lighting
  • Change from incandescent lights to CFLs