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Johannesburg and its close neighbours Ekurhuleni and Tshwane will be the focus of energy efficiency and energy sustainability research over the next seven years. Germany is the other partner in the programme.
Joburg's emergency management services is looking at alternative energy sources for the poor, says the unit's executive director, Audrey Gule
S
CIENCE and technology experts and the three large metros in Gauteng have taken head on the challenge of energy scarcity in South Africa.
Over the next seven to nine years a number of energy efficiency projects will be undertaken in Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni and Tshwane. Pilot projects have been running since 2006 and will now be rolled out on a larger scale to develop energy savings strategies across these cities.
Referred to as the EnerKey programme, it is a joint collaboration between South Africa and Germany that researches the use of energy in the rapidly merging metropolitan areas of Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni and Tshwane (JET).
The three cities combined are growing at about 11 percent a year, and are expected to hit the 10-million people mark by 2015, the benchmark for megacities.
At the moment South Africa’s economy and energy system is driven by coal-produced electricity and the country has a carbon dioxide emission per capita as high as that of Germany.
“Energy is the key technology of sustainable megacities,” Harold Annegarn, one of the project’s leaders for South Africa, said at a special briefing of EnerKey at the University of Johannesburg on Thursday, 7 February. The briefing was held to mark the first two successful years of the programme.
The professor is based at the university.
He said the focus of the programme would deliberately move away from fossil and nuclear resources. Instead, renewable energy resources would be the departure point, with innovation a key aspect. “[It is about] developing new knowledge, [and] applying new knowledge.”
Pilots completed
The programme’s two-year pilot phase has recently been completed, and it is ready to embark on more extensive research and energy deployment projects.
A solar water heating project was initiated at Cosmo City
Johannesburg will benefit from the recently completed pilot study into traffic and mobility. It monitored fuel use, air pollutant emissions and congestion in greater Johannesburg and developed an improved emissions inventory model for use in air quality management and transportation infrastructure planning.
The research will continue and will be applied specifically to the planned Bus Rapid Transit system.
Another Joburg pilot study focussed on solar power. Under the solar water heating project initiated at Cosmo City, solar heaters were installed at 170 Reconstruction and Development Programme homes last year. Solar water heaters can save anything from 10 to 30 percent of a household’s energy consumption.
During the pilot study, an extensive business plan for the large-scale rollout of domestic solar water heaters to the residential sector elsewhere in Johannesburg was developed. It is scheduled to be implemented this year.
And through the residential thermal energy project, better thermal energy devices for residential buildings and settlements were developed, tested and piloted. The pilot was launched in Setswetla village, an informal area in Alexandra, in 2007. A number of residents received safer paraffin stoves, lamps and fire-proof bedding and curtains. This project will be expanded to other informal areas this year.
In Tshwane, a pilot school in Garsfontein was retrofitted with insulation to measure the energy performance of different school buildings.
Energy poverty
With household coal fires still the biggest polluter in the country, the energy needs of poor residents are a major priority in the programme. In addition, poor households make use of highly flammable paraffin for cooking, heating and lighting, which contributes to 40 percent of fires in informal settlements.
The basa magogo (fire of the old lady) method of starting a fire in braziers used for cooking is a very simple but effective method to maximise energy use and reduce pollution at grassroots level. With the new method, the coal is placed first in the drum and then topped with the faster burning kindling.
Laboratory tests have shown that it reduces smoke by up to 90 percent, the South African National Energy Research Institute (Saneri) has confirmed. This method is widely advocated by EnerKey partners, PEER Africa, the Sustainable Energy Society of Southern Africa and Sustainable Energy Africa, with pilot projects ongoing at various informal settlements across the country.
Joburg’s emergency management services is also about to embark on an extensive alternative energy pilot project for the poor. “We are looking at alternative energy sources for the poor,” confirmed the unit’s executive director, Audrey Gule.
The first step will be taken in the next two months, with about 4 000 residents targeted in Alexandra, Diepsloot, Ivory Park and George Goch informal settlements.
Gule said this project would initially either be in the form of solar panels or safe lighting, with a secondary component providing subsidies for safer paraffin implemented at a later stage.
Her department is working closely with the department of environmental management on the programme. A strong focus is on job creation, through the making, supplying and servicing of safe stoves and paraffin.
To boost the country’s science and technology bank, higher learning and student exchange programmes also form part of EnerKey, with 17 students from Germany and South Africa registered for higher degrees under the project.
The idea is to establish a permanent research network between the two countries. The project leader representing German interests, Ludger Eltrop, said all cities worldwide were faced with the challenges of rapid urbanisation and climate change. The need for common solutions had become a matter of urgency.
The EnerKey partnership consists of experts in the energy field in the cities of Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni; academics from Johannesburg, Cape Town and Witwatersrand universities; energy suppliers and organisations in South Africa and Germany; and the city and University of Stuttgart.
Germany will contribute €3,8-million (about R43-million) over the next five years for its portion of the partnership. Saneri, the South African National Research Foundation, the University of Johannesburg and the City of Johannesburg have likewise contributed financially to the research projects to be undertaken in the JET cities.
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