Enlit Africa puts spotlight on innovative energy solutions
18 May 2023
The City of Cape Town
welcomes the Enlit Africa conference and exhibition to Cape Town, including the
Green Hub. This three-day event, held at the CTICC, from Tuesday, 16 May to Thursday 18 May, has brought together various
stakeholders, from businesses to consultants, developers and analysts from
different countries, to discuss and share innovative solutions to the
continent’s vision for a ‘Just Energy Transition’.
The event includes a live conference, an exhibition showcasing new services, product launches and state-of-the-art technologies, roundtables, other related and networking events as well as interviews with industry professionals.
The City's Mayoral Committee Member for Economic Growth, Alderman James Vos, spoke at the opening of the conference. Councillor Beverley van Reenen, the City's Mayoral Committee Member for Energy, attended the conference.
'The importance of this conference, taking place in this country and on this continent, at this time in our world, cannot be understated. With South Africa's energy crisis entering its darkest period, the thought that consultants, analysts, developers, and experts from every related sphere of influence has come together in Cape Town to discuss innovative and sustainable solutions offers more hope to our residents, businesses and government departments.
'An exciting part of this event for Cape Town in particular is the Green Hub that was set up to display our local SMMEs' services and products, and business partners, to the rest of the continent, to help grow our economy. Load-shedding is impacting on everyone's lives, residents and businesses included, so we need to do what we can to assist and support where possible.
'The City will continue to position Cape Town as a globally competitive business destination through our InvestCapeTown initiative. We will also continue to fund our strategic business partners like GreenCape, the Atlantis Special Economic Zone and Wesgro so we can work together to help support SMMEs to grow Cape Town's green economy,' said Alderman Vos.
Councillor Van Reenen said the City continues to look at innovative ways to reduce dependence on Eskom.
'We have made great progress in our endeavour to end load-shedding in Cape Town over time by increasingly starting to make use of innovative energy solutions.
'We are also further expanding and strengthening our network, and ensuring access to more affordable, safe and reliable energy supply to Cape Town's homes and businesses.
'As load-shedding accelerates the energy evolution toward the uptake of reliable power supply instruments such as small- to utility-scale embedded generation, dispatchable energy solutions including battery storage, demand side management and wheeling, what has become clear is the urgent investment in new technology and innovation,' said Councillor Van Reenen.
End
Published by:
City of Cape Town, Media Office
