Loadshedding resilience 

We are often asked: Why does Swartland Municipality not simply leave the ESKOM grid? It is however not as easy and simple as it sounds. For any municipality to generate and provide electricity without ESKOM, infrastructure and generation capacity worth millions of rands is needed. For almost all municipalities in South Africa this is not financially possible or feasible.

Swartland Municipality has however taken certain steps and we are continuing to plan additional measures to try and mitigate the impact of loadshedding wherever possible.

What are we doing to reduce the impact of loadshedding?

• Swartland Municipality is part of the Western Cape Provincial Government’s Energy Resilience Project. Since the announcement thereof we have undertaken various feasibility studies and viability studies to determine if alternative energy generation at a reasonable price is possible.

• Swartland has an approved SSEG net metering residential tariff which allows residential customers to sell excess energy back to the municipality. This will be extended to accommodate commercial and industrial customers.

• We will be submitting infeed tariffs for industrial and commercial customers to NERSA as part of our tariff increase application.  If approved it will allow not only residential but also Industrial and Commercial customers to sell excess energy to the municipality

• We are in the process of updating our Electricity By-Law to incorporate SSEG (Small Scale Embedded Generation) and, implementing a SSEG Policy while also improving our SSEG procedures and application process.  This will assist with the regulation of SSEG installations and safeguard the municipal electrical staff and the electrical network as well as the customers.

• We are in the process of developing a Framework for Wheeling of energy from Renewable energy producers (IPP’s) to customers in our area by making use of the municipal network.

• We are in the process of purchasing emergency standby generators and battery back-up power supplies to ensure the continuation of service delivery - of critical infrastructure such as water and sanitation pump stations and critical customer facing office facilities.

• The Municipality is also looking at making municipal land available for the possible development of renewable energy plants from which the municipality can purchase energy to lessen the reliance on Eskom and possible reduce the input cost of bulk electricity purchases.

It is not within the financial means of any municipality to eradicate loadshedding. All efforts are now on lessening the impact wherever possible and to ensure legislation, by-laws and policies are in place so that residents (those who are able to do so) can equip themselves with ways and means to lessen the impact of loadshedding on their daily lives through alternative energy means such as residential solar panels and invertors.