In November, the Cape Town Central City Improvement District (CCID) launched a public awareness campaign aimed at building owners, business owners and their employees, as well as residents in the CBD, offering them practical steps on how to save electricity in the face of ongoing power cuts, as well as outlining the material benefits, such as cost savings, these steps can provide.
The CCID’s energy saving campaign emphasises that all stakeholders can make a difference by implementing power-saving measures.
As we all know, electricity is in short supply in South Africa, but the CCID campaign highlights that everyone who has a vested interested in the success of the Cape Town city centre – from commercial and residential landlords to business owners, office workers and visitors – has the power to conserve this valuable resource for the good of Cape Town’s vibrant economic and lifestyle hub.
The core message of the public campaign is: “Switch on to Switch off: It just makes good business sense”.
The CCID is a private-public company which manages the Cape Town CBD, offering top-up services in security, cleaning, and social development in partnership with local government and the SAPS. Established in 2000 by local property owners, the company also drives high-quality investment into the inner city.
The campaign emphasises that all stakeholders who own or rent property, or who work or live in, or visit the CBD can make a difference by implementing a range of power-saving measures – whether that’s by improving the energy efficiency of a high-rise building or simply switching off office equipment and appliances when they are not in use.
With the CBD estimated to contribute a substantial amount of the metro’s annual gross domestic product, the CCID campaign will empower affected parties to play an active role in saving costs related to occupancy, operations and living in the context of the country’s electricity crunch.
The campaign sets out a practical eight-step guide for all parties to save power. This has been developed by experts in the electricity sector as well as affected stakeholders, and includes the following recommendations:
- An energy audit to identify areas of high energy consumption
- Upgrading to LED lighting, to achieve 80 % less energy use than traditional lamps
- Optimising heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems
- Promoting energy-saving behaviour
- Use of energy-efficient office equipment
- Installation of renewable energy systems
- Integrating battery storage to provide backup power during power outages
- Implementation of demand shaving to shift energy consumption to off-peak periods when electricity prices are lower.
Rob Kane, Chairperson of the CCID Board and CEO of Boxwood Property Fund, says by taking responsibility and ownership of their own power-saving initiatives, stakeholders can ensure the Cape Town CBD continues to thrive. “We need to act now, and we are calling on everyone to play their part. We all need to be switched on about switching off.”
The campaign comes on the back of several ground-breaking initiatives by the City of Cape Town aimed at bolstering the city’s power supply.
The municipality is planning to add one gigawatt of independent power to the metro’s grid, with the first 650 MW expected to come online by 2025/26. This will protect the city and all its stakeholders against the first four stages of Eskom’s loadshedding. More than 100 MW of solar PV capacity is already installed in the metro.
In December 2022, the City introduced its Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) compliance initiative to ensure implementation of regulations for all government buildings over 1 000 m2 and all privately owned buildings of more than 2 000 m2, in specific occupancy classes, to display an EPC publicly within two years.
CCID Chief Executive, Tasso Evangelinos says through this new campaign the CCID aims to assist inner-city property owners, tenants, and occupants in a way that “fully recognises the challenges they face with the rolling blackouts being implemented around the country”.
According to Kane, each building should be able to save 15% of its power by implementing measures contained in the eight-point plan and collaborating with landlords, tenants and the CCID itself.
Boxwood Property Fund has already reduced energy consumption by 11% and is targeting a further 7 to 10% decrease.
Francois Viruly, an associate professor, and Director of the Urban Real Estate Research Unit at the University of Cape Town, says there is much that can be achieved through a comprehensive and sustainable approach to the CCID’s recommendations. “This includes the use of new energy-saving technologies and ensuring that enterprises and individuals most affected by loadshedding are appropriately catered for. It also offers an opportunity for the city to find an appropriate balance between economic, social, and environmental sustainability.”
For more information visit: www.capetownccid.org