Fourth Energy Efficiency Forum held at the Santam Auditorium

The fourth Energy Efficiency Forum was hosted by Santam at its head office auditorium in Bellville with 116 members attending. This forum involved presentations from seven speakers:

What is the City of Cape Town doing about Energy and Climate Change?

Sarah Ward, Head of Energy and Climate Change for the City of Cape Town, gave a presentation which outlined the short, medium and possible long-term energy situation for the country along with the City’s vision, objectives and actions in response to the energy crisis and carbon mitigation.

Sarah emphasised that:

• South Africa will still be in an energy crisis from 2011 to 2014 with an energy demand that is greater than the current supply capacity. The effects of load shedding are significant. “To put it in perspective, it is estimated that the economy pays R50 to R100 per kWh during a blackout, opposed to the current <R1 kWh when lights are on,” said Sarah
  
• Cape Town’s per unit GDP is high compared to other cities across the world – this highlights our inefficiency to provide historically cheap electricity
  
• the commercial sector within the City consumes 28% of the total consumption
  
• electricity tariffs will be doubled by 2012 and possibly tripled soon thereafter due to Eskom’s supply expansion programme with costs being passed down to the consumer
  
• energy efficiency interventions are sound financial investments with decreasing payback periods 

Click here to view the presentation.

New ‘green’ regional office block at Century City for Aurecon

Pieter Grabe did a presentation on Aurecon’s new 7 000 m² “green” regional office block which is under construction at Century City.

This R150 million, four storey building is being developed by Rabie Property. It is being built according to environmentally friendly principles in the hope of achieving Green Star accreditation from the Green Building Council of South Africa. Aspects of indoor environmental quality, energy, water, transport, materials, emissions, land use and ecology, and innovation were taken into consideration from design to construction.

Green measures include:

• State-of-the-art air-conditioning and natural ventilation systems
• LED lighting 
  
• a building management system which controls and monitors energy consumption
• Grey water irrigation and the harvesting of rain water for toilets
• High-performance glazing that will be used on the windows to reduce glare and radiant heat
  
  

“The principle of investing to gain future paybacks applies very much to sustainable buildings. Becoming more energy efficient is an area of increasing priority as companies become more prudent about expenditure and ensure the design of their premises minimises future expenditure. These new extensive green building measures will increase overall construction costs by 8% to 10%, most of which will quickly be recouped through significant energy savings and reduced operational costs,” said Pieter. 

Click here to view the presentation. 

Update on progress of GBCSA tool for existing buildings

Manfred Braune, Technical Executive from the Green Building Council of South Africa (GBCSA), did a presentation on the progress of the development of the GBCSA’s tool for rating existing buildings.

Manfred emphasised that it is the existing building stock that is responsible for vast amounts of resource consumption, as building practices in the past had little or no consideration of environmental performance. Thus, this tool is of great importance in aiding the reduction of environmental impacts of the existing building stock.

A key focus for the tool used in the existing building approach is that of energy, with the need to incorporate an energy benchmark tool, which will compare energy consumption within similar buildings. This data will be maintained in a national database of building energy use.

Manfred also discussed existing building survival strategies, detailing the steps in the process of retrofitting your building. 

Click here to view the presentation. 

Update on Eskom’s ‘Standard Offer’ subsidy mechanism

Lodine Redelinghuys, Sales and Marketing Manager for Eskom’s Western Region did a presentation on Eskom’s Standard Offer initiative.

The Standard Offer is a mechanism where Eskom provides funding to incentivise industrial and commercial electricity users, municipalities and Energy Service Companies (ESCOs) to replace inefficient fixtures, relamp inefficient lamps, retrofit inefficient fixtures and control of lighting. The customer (or the Esco) is required to submit an energy savings plan application to participate in the Standard Offer programme. The implementation of the project can commence at the company's own cost once it has been approved by Eskom. Eskom will then provide an incentive for energy savings at a rate of 34 cents per kWh over a period of three years in respect of the predetermined saving targets agreed upon. The current Standard Offer only considers lighting, but plans to include efficient HVAC in the near future. 

Click here to view the presentation. 

An overview of the Energy Cybernetics Energy Barometer

Prof LJ Grobler from Energy Cybernetics, presented The Energy Barometer which scientifically compares buildings’ energy consumption on an ‘apples-to-apples’-basis taking into account factors such as climatic condition, occupancy, floor area, etc.

The barometer aims to:

• develop a comprehensive, reliable and accurate energy benchmark database of South African buildings, enabling building-owners to assess their energy intensities and compare these with their historic consumption as well as industry average and other buildings in the same sector
• create an awareness of industry’s energy consumption and its emissions footprint with a view to become more environmentally aware and playing a much-needed role in securing the country’s energy future
  
  

The value for organisations to participate in the Energy Barometer is four-fold:

• benchmarking: The Energy Barometer provides each participant with a report, mapping their performance rating, ranking it against similar organisations as well as the industry standard. This gives organisations a foundation on which to base their energy optimisation projects and monitor their improvement. The Barometer’s long-term goal is to launch a web-based energy benchmarking-system accessible to all participants
• economic: The improvement of a generally neglected area of operations such as energy efficiency often leads to simultaneous, unexpected improvements in other areas. This leads to higher throughputs and better quality products as a result of improved total business efficiency with significant bottom-line gains
• marketing: In an increasingly environmentally conscious world, a building with a positive energy profile is much more marketable than that which disregards the environment
• tax rebate: Initiating energy efficiency projects will align participants with the objectives of Government’s Power Conservation Plan and as a result they may qualify for the accompanying tax rebates. 
  
  

Click here to view the presentation. 

The impact of comparative consumption information supplied to electricity consumers. Results from an ongoing behaviour change through information project.

Grant Smith, from UCT, presented the findings of a study conducted in some of Capetoanian households. The aim of the study was to see if these households could be encouraged to use less electricity of their own free will by referencing their consumption to social norms of electricity consumption. The study involved informing residents of their electricity consumption along with their neighbourhoods’ and the City’s average electricity consumption. This information was provided on their rates and electricity bill. Smiley faces (uses less electricity than the average) and sad faces (uses more electricity than average) were illustrated on the bills as well. The main finding of this study was that those residents who received such comparative feedback, lowered their electricity consumption over time. 

Click here to view the presentation. 

Opening and closing, along with an update on the City’s residential saving campaign.

The opening and closing presentation was done by the City's Electricity Saving Campaign Manager, Sheryl Ozinsky. It also included an update on the City’s residential saving campaign.

Click here to view the presentation.