ABSTRACT
Cape Town has been one of South Africa’s pioneering cities with regard to the development of strategies for dealing with climate change and future energy needs. The City of Cape Town established an Energy and Climate Change Strategy in 2006, and has implemented institutional reforms to support this initiative. In addition to this, a State of Energy for the City Report was completed in 2003 and updated in 2007 (Sustainable Energy Africa 2003, 2007), and initial energy modelling was undertaken in 2005 (ERC 2005) in order for the City to assess the implications of different future development paths for the energy sector. In response to these strategies and reports, the City has developed an Energy and Climate Action Plan (ECAP), which was adopted by the City Council in May 2010. This action plan is structured in terms of 11 key objectives, comprising programme areas that consist of individual projects currently under way or planned, extending over a three-year period. These projects have been taken through an initial prioritisation process; however, additional information regarding consumption patterns, costs, trends and risks was required to underpin this action plan and thereby verify the prioritisation, assist with the setting of targets and extend the plan into the longer term.
