Power Monopoly ends with South Africa’s cities switching to Solar

After the energy ministry’s approval of letting cities to wean themselves off the state utility, South Africa’s biggest cities are preparing to source their own power. This has earlier subjected cities to outages for the past 13 years.

More and more sustainable sources such as solar and landfill gas produced power are being planned by cities such as Johannesburg and Cape Town, which have a population of approximately 10 million people. They will be diversifying the electricity produce which was earlier mainly done from coal by Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd.

“The City is looking at 300 megawatts of renewable” energy, Kadri Nassiep, Cape Town’s executive director for energy and climate change has said. “If all clarity is obtained and plans forge ahead, we could start seeing greater diversification of our energy resources as a city in about three to five years’ time.”

This step has been taken in respect to their fight in climate change by using power that doesn’t emit greenhouse gases i.e mainly carbon dioxide emissions. This will improve the security of supply in allowing cities to their part in climate change.