Govan Mbeki Municipality to generate own electricity
Zuma said the municipality would dominate SA and the world in electricity generation.
The Govan Mbeki Municipality’s executive mayor, Nhlakanipho Zuma, said the municipality would generate its own electricity because Eskom struggled to supply.
Zuma said this when opening a three-day economic and energy summit at the Lillian Ngoyi Centre in Secunda on June 20, under the theme Taking Govan Mbeki to the Glorious Heights of the Economy.
He said the municipality would dominate SA and the world in electricity generation.
“We are the only municipality with a carbon capture project recognised internationally. This project by the Council for Geo-Science is worth billions of rand.
“We have Sasol, a national key point because it is an energy hub in SA and produces various forms of energy such as liquid, oil, gas, and electricity from fossil fuels.
“We also have a company that will implement a wind energy grid worth billions of rand in our municipality,” said Zuma.
Zuma said the municipality would need about 250MW of electricity by 2030 to prevent load-shedding. The current demand is 160MW.
He said they could not continue building human settlements without considering how the municipality would provide electricity to those people and new industries.
Sasol senior vice president Gerrit Viljoen said the petrochemical giant had begun investing in green hydrogen to produce low-carbon products.
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Viljoen said Sasol was changing from fossil fuels to low-carbon fuels, the first energy transition in changing traditional fuels made from coal and to fight climate change.
“Energy transition can only be successful if it provides energy security and facilitates economic growth and sustainability. The transition must be diligently made,” said Viljoen.
Closing the summit, Zuma said the municipality would not tolerate employees’ misconduct and said they suspended some and fired others due to misconduct.
“I warn those employees we have not yet reached that we are coming for them,” said Zuma.
Zuma also encouraged community members and small and medium businesses to start investing in the energy business.
He said the municipality currently has economic growth of between 0.5% and 1%, far less than the growing population.
