City honoured with two prestigious awards for Paardevlei electricity switching station project
24 October 2025
The City’s Energy Directorate is proud to announce that its Paardevlei 132kV Switching Station has received two major accolades:
International Project Management Association (IPMA) Global Project Excellence Awards 2025 – Silver Winner (small to medium project)
Project Management (PM) Summit and Prestige Awards 2025 – Project of the year Runner Up
These accolades affirm the City’s commitment to excellence in Energy infrastructure development.
The City’s Paardevlei 132kV Switching station was selected as the City’s submission for these prestigious awards due to its strategic impact, technical innovation, and successful delivery under challenging conditions. The project introduced a state of the art switching station equipped with modern gas-insulated switchgear technology to strengthen the City’s electricity network.
‘These awards demonstrate excellence in infrastructure delivery and highlights the capabilities of our teams , not only in the Energy Directorate but across the municipality.
‘Despite this project being implemented during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, the project was completed with only 1,4% cost variation on the R152,2 million budget, which illustrates our strong financial and project management discipline,’ said the Mayoral Committee Member for Energy, Alderman Xanthea Limberg.
‘The Energy team did an excellent job in navigating the ever changing regulations and site challenges. Their response to challenges sharpened focus on our delivery, and this project is one of high strategic importance and lays the foundation for future grid connections, including the proposed Paardevlei Solar plant.
‘The success of the Paardevlei Switching station project sets a benchmark for future delivery across the city and reflects the innovation, professionalism and resilience of all teams involved,’ said Ina Kruger, Head: Transmission System Development.
More about Paardevlei Switching Station:
The project will achieve long term savings for the City of approximately R8 million per year and enables grid connection points for Independent Power Producers (IPP), large power users, and the City’s own renewable energy projects - supporting the City’s sustainability goals and the strategic Mayoral Priority Programme of becoming less reliant on Eskom.
The Energy Directorate also won the following:
Wesley Barthus, Helderberg Electricity Depot Manager won the Emerging Project Manager of the Year award at the PM Summit and Prestige Awards 2025. He also won the Young Project Manager of the Year award at the City’s Annual EPCM Awards and will also be participating in the IPMA South African awards with the intention of further participating in the IPMA Global awards.
Imizamo Yethu electrification project - Winner of the Project of the year 2025 under the Project Excellence Category at the City's Annual Engineering, Project and Contract Management (EPCM) Excellence Awards
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Published by:
City of Cape Town, Media Office
