Energy Policy Camps Bay

Minutes/Notes of Meeting 9^th December 2009

Attendees: Roy Bermeister, Colin Carter, Nick Fredman, Roger Trythall

This was the first meeting of certain, but not all interested parties. It was motivated by a number of events:

• The prospect of significant increases of electricity costs by ESKOM; to potentially double if not treble household electricity costs per Kw over the next 3 to 5 years, stimulating competition and development of alternative means of energy generation, distribution and consumption.
• The ever increasing awareness of Climate Change among the citizens of South Africa and that the current energy policy in South Africa, based almost entirely on coal fired power stations, leads to RSA being ranked as one of the highest emitter of carbon on a per capita basis in the world.
• The emergence of cost effective technologies to use renewables and natural sources to develop clean energy production: wind, solar, waves etc., and that these technologies can be deployed at community if not household level.

The discussion centered around the prospect and potential for the residents of Camps Bay to have an energy policy largely independent of Eskom, based on new technologies using renewables and natural sources.

Key areas that require more analysis would be:

• Technical: Evaluation of the various technologies and their appropriateness for Camps Bay; their location; distribution systems. Sustainability and ability to supply loads that could fluctuate significantly to peak demand estimated at 15 Mega watts daily. Roy pointed us to Scientific American November 2009, which essentially substantiates the point that there is adequate natural sources and technology to support localization of power generation. Indeed by 2030, countries could be free of coal fired power stations.
• Economics: A study would need to be done comparing the costs of the new technologies and Eskom taking into account the future price increases. We understand that UCT has developed some models and that we should contact them.
• Political: At this time power is supplied by Cape Town, drawing on Eskom power. Discussions would need to take place to discuss the principle of a community developing and managing its own power policy.

The principle of independence from Eskom is to some extent established, by its and government policy to incentivise individual households to adopt solar water heating, thus reducing demand on Eskom capabilities and capacities. Secondly, the Tsitsikamma wind farm situated in Eastern Cape is the first community-owned project of its kind in the country (BR 1^st December 2009). According to a BR article 11^th December Eskom puts the average cost of new generation capacity as high as US $4 million per megawatt. This is up from earlier estimates of US $1 million.

Action points:

• Roy to contact UCT regarding attendance at next meeting to discuss Economics
• IRT to contact Tsitskamma wind project

Next Meeting:

To be scheduled in January and to include representatives of Camps Bay Resident association.

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