The role of municipalities in facilitating a just energy transition and ensuring the shift to sustainable energy sources is equitable and inclusive is crucial, says Parks Tau, Deputy Minister of the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA).

Tau made the remarks in his keynote address at Enlit Africa 2024 at the Cape Town International Convention Centre this week.

He highlighted municipalities’ responsibility to adopt and implement policies that promote renewable energy adoption, energy efficiency, phasing out of fossil fuels and driving change at grassroots level.

He said COGTA has pinpointed several areas for collaboration with municipalities. These areas include:

• Demand-side management interventions: Implementing strategies to significantly reduce energy demand and losses to achieve substantial savings.
• Renewable energy projects: Evaluating and developing renewable energy projects to bolster municipal network capacity.
• Infrastructure and skills development: Addressing backlogs in electricity infrastructure and maintenance and tackling skills shortages.

Tau also outlined other interventions being considered or at implementation stage. These include:

• Municipal energy generation: Promoting a diverse mix of dispatchable and non-dispatchable energy sources such as gas, solar PV and battery energy storage to provide municipalities and, by extension, the country with adequate generation capacity.

• Enabling policies: Formulating policies such as embedded generation policies to guide future energy supply and demand decisions.

However, he acknowledged challenges such as funding constraints and legal hurdles must be addressed. He also touched on the need for municipalities to engage with embedded generators and distributed small-scale generating entities as potential partners, suggesting the development of appropriate feed-in tariffs to purchase excess generated power.

“Conducting cost-of-supply studies across all municipalities is essential to determine the true cost of electricity supply, factoring in current issues like declining paying customer bases, illegal connections and high instances of theft and violence,” Tau noted. “Implementing cost-reflective tariffs is crucial for the financial sustainability of our municipalities.”

Tau also stressed the importance of developing a robust wheeling framework, which would unlock additional energy sources nationwide. “With multiple independent power producers and various projects underway, a wheeling framework will expedite the development of these generation projects and ensure electricity can be efficiently distributed, based on demand.”

Furthermore, he advocated gas-to-power purchase agreements with competitive tariffs to ensure long-term municipal sustainability. He added that addressing issues such as indigent management, illegal connections, integrity of billing data, smart meter rollout and infrastructure protection was crucial to provide sustainable energy services.

Highlighting opportunities identified by COGTA, Tau mentioned the potential of municipal rooftops and small-scale battery energy storage systems to improve supply reliability and reduce energy costs. He also pointed out the benefits of self-generation, including microgrids and purchasing electricity from independent power producers, which can lower tariffs and enhance electricity supply security. Meanwhile, battery energy storage systems can mitigate demand charges by supplying stored energy during peak periods.

“Success hinges on improved governance, accountability, data monitoring and evaluation. These elements will ensure successful implementation and long-term sustainability of municipalities,” Tau said.