Winde reaffirms province’s programme to free itself from loadshedding

Western Cape Premier Alan Winde has reaffirmed his administration’s determination to rapidly reduce, and ultimately end, the impact of electricity loadshedding (scheduled rotating power cuts, imposed by national electricity utility Eskom) on the province. He did so in his keynote address at the ground-breaking ceremony for a solar power plant at the Rheinmetall Denel Munition (RDM) facility in Somerset West (in south-west Cape Town). “We really aim to become independent when it comes to energy provision,” he assured. “We want four or five towns this year to be loadshedding free.”
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Rheinmetall Denel Munition is building a solar energy plant at its Somerset West facility

The official groundbreaking ceremony for a 5.06 MWp capacity solar energy plant at the Rheinmetall Denel Munition (RDM) plant at Somerset West, in metropolitan Cape Town, was held late Wednesday afternoon. (Because of circumstances, the civils works on the site had had to be started before the official groundbreaking took place.)   “Today marks a critical milestone in our energy transition journey in South Africa,” highlighted RDM CEO Jan-Patrick Helmsen in his address. The solar plant is being built to immunise the Somerset West facility from the effects of the scheduled rotating power cuts imposed on the country by the national electricity utility Eskom, because of its lack of operational generating capacity. Loadshedding has had “quite a significant impact on us, as an industry,” he noted, adding that it had cost RDM “a lot of money” last year.
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