Energy Efficiency Marketplace

As recommended by EE Forum members, the fifth Energy Efficiency Forum took the form of a market place of energy efficient goods and services in which credible suppliers presented their products and services to commercial building managers. Each supplier was provided with a table and members of the forum rotated from table to table. A bell was rung every 10 minutes whereafter everyone moved to the next table.

The forum was kindly hosted and sponsored by Old Mutual at their head office, Mutual Park in Pinelands.

Proceedings commenced with a case study, presented by Khiyam Fredericks, Old Mutual Facility Manager, on the energy saving programme that has been undertaken at Mutual Park. Interventions in lighting, HVAC, lift operations and behaviour change have resulted in savings of up to 300 000 kWh per month (7%). Click here to download his presentation.

Sarah Ward, Head of Energy and Climate Change for the City of Cape Town, then went on to emphasize the importance of reducing electricity consumption with an overview of National Government’s recent Draft Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) which sets out South Africa’s energy plan for the next 50 years. The IRP has a heavy slant towards building new power stations (41.35 GW), with the cost thereof being passed down to the consumer, resulting in many years of tariff increases. “With increasing tariffs, energy efficiency interventions are therefore sound investments”, said Sarah.

Brian Jones, Head of Green Energy City of Cape Town Electricity Department, spoke after Sarah. His key message was that the City’s Electricity Department has more customers than ever despite the fact that total electricity sales are decreasing, even after the economic recession. This shows that customers, especially in the residential sector, are reducing their consumption. He followed on to say that in the commercial sector, large savings are possible, and concluded by saying that the City sees the EE Forum as the ideal platform to work together with commercial building managers to achieve this objective.

The market place united commercial building managers/owners intending to implement energy efficiency interventions within their buildings with the actual suppliers of these interventions. Download the full list of energy efficiency goods and services suppliers here, including a brief description of their product/s and contact details.

This first market place was considered a huge success, and it is intended that it will become an annual event.