Premier

1. In 2024, we established the Energy and Water Council (then known as the Energy Council) to ensure the Western Cape’s energy and water security in the face of loadshedding and climate change-driven disruptions to our rain-fed water supply. Among other items, that council frequently receives updates from Eskom and other stakeholders on the current state of our energy and water supply, and our ongoing efforts to improve resilience in both categories.

At a meeting of the council held just under a month ago on the 27^th of May 2025, Eskom provided their winter outlook. While we remain vigilant toward the potential threat of additional breakdowns, Eskom does appear to have made some positive steps under the Generation Recovery Programme. In particular:

1. Koeberg Unit 2 has been successfully synchronised to the grid and is once again generating power. Unit 1 remains offline after an extended outage, but is expected to return to service next month.
2. Medupi Unit 4 and Kusile Unit 5 are also anticipated to return to service, contributing additional capacity.

If all of these units are synchronised to the grid successfully and on schedule, Eskom informed the council of an additional 1800MW of capacity that was not available during the previous year.

We will continue to monitor the progress of these units and Eskom’s progress in restoring its generation capacity. The Energy and Water Council will next meet in August, and I would welcome the opportunity to provide further updates to this House in that regard at that time.

2. Despite the positive progress being made by Eskom in restoring generating capacity, the Western Cape Energy Resilience Programme (WCERP) remains a vital part of the Western Cape Government’s response to the ongoing threat of loadshedding.

Initially designed to mitigate the impact of load shedding and reduce reliance on Eskom, the WCERP has evolved into mitigating and managing energy-related disasters and facilitating improved energy resilience in the Western Cape, in line with Priority Focus Area 3: Energy Resilience and Net Zero Carbon of the WCG’s Growth for Jobs (G4J) Strategy.

The WCERP has been delivering on these strategic objectives through projects grouped in the following components:

1. Disaster mitigation and management
2. Strategic planning, development and management
3. Demand side management
4. Energy generation, procurement and trading
5. Maintenance & expansion of energy infrastructure
6. Increased investment in the energy sector
7. Improved energy affordability
8. Net-zero emissions province

In its existence, the WCERP has already ensured the delivery of 91,160 load shedding packs to households throughout the Western Cape.

It has provided grants to support municipal owned energy projects (e.g. Hessequa Municipal Solar and Battery Plant and electricity master plans and cost of supply studies), and provided support to municipalities as they procure power from Independent Power Producers.

It has ensured small scale embedded generation (rooftop solar PV) and the provision of alternative energy systems to SMMEs at 12 trading hubs in seven municipalities.

It has also ensured the installation of Solar PV at 17 WCG buildings, and energy resilience programmes accross142 Health and Education facilities.

While these gains have taken place rapidly, the WCERP has longer-term goals, including an ambitious target to increase low carbon energy by 1,800MW-5,700MW in the Western Cape by 2035.

This goal is currently well ahead of schedule. An estimated 535MW of rooftop solar PV was installed by the end of 2024, and Eskom estimates that an additional 175MW of rooftop solar PV has been installed in 2025 to date.

An estimated 112MW of power is currently being wheeled by the private sector to various known private sector off-takers in the Western Cape with further private sector wheeling anticipated by 2030. Additionally, approximately 380MW of power from independent power producers is currently under procurement by various Western Cape municipalities.

In the 2024/2025 financial year, 1 000 MW of non-Eskom energy was tapped into the grid, the bulk of which was through Small-Scale Embedded Generation and private wheeling projects. We expect to achieve a further 1,000MW of energy over the current financial year, made up predominantly of municipal generation and private sector, business-to-business electricity wheeling.

While the threat of loadshedding cannot be discounted, I want to assure residents that we are working as hard as we always have to ensure the resilience and consistency of Western Cape’s energy supply.