The City of Tshwane’s climate action plan targeting to have up to 80% of its energy generated from clean sources by 2050 is not a pie in the sky, said divisional head for municipal sustainability unit, Sello Mphaga.
Mphaga was speaking recently at a pre-launch of the inaugural Tshwane Energy Summit 2024, to be hosted by the Tshwane Economic Development Agency (Teda) and the City on June 19-20 at the SunBet Arena in Menlyn.
He said moving to renewable energy as part of reducing emissions, was a target set in the City’s climate action plan approved by the council in 2022.
Prior to the 2050 target, the City had set itself a target that by 2025 its energy plan would have been put in place.
He said the City, supported by the CSIR, was busy with studies looking into Tshwane’s grid capacity, the energy mix and potential infrastructural investment.
Mphaga added that the City had another target to have at least 10% of its energy coming from renewables by 2030.
“By 2050 we envisage that up to 80% of our energy needs to be from renewables, so we are saying that the exercise we envisage to be rolling out in the coming months should be putting us among cities that are very progressive,” he said.
Mphaga emphasised that the targets were “not just a pie in the sky” as there had already been projects implemented to showcase the City’s ability to achieve them.
He cited the example of the City’s headquarters, Tshwane House, having acquired a five star green rating.
“We introduced back then some electric vehicles in our fleet to reduce carbon emission from our fleet,” he said.
Mphaga said there was a concerted effort to bring on board those generating clean energy in the mainstream.
“We are facilitating that through a willing policy that is also currently being reviewed. We have already started with the willing arrangements between the City, BMW and Bio2Watt in Bronkhorstspruit,” he said.
Mphaga said Tshwane was among cities that had signed up to respond to climate change impact both on the economy, the people and the environment, “We became a member of C40, a global network of cities with ambitions to contribute towards reducing our emissions.”
He said the City had to take some bold steps to reduce emissions due to the reliance of the government on the Eskom grid, which was largely coal-fired.