Kouga Municipality has outlined their plans at the state of the municipality address (SOMA) on March 7, which includes reducing their reliance on Eskom as a sole energy supplier and further establishing their purification plants to provide residents with drinkable borehole water.
Despite the challenges faced by the ongoing drought, economy breaking lockdowns and an energy disaster, Kouga executive mayor, Horatio Hendricks said he was hopeful that the plans set in motion by the municipality would effectively counter these challenges.
He said to reduce Kouga’s reliance on Eskom as a sole energy supplier, it has become a top priority to put measurements in place to mitigate the negative impact suffered by residents and businesses due to the ongoing load shedding implemented by Eskom.
“Facing a water and energy crises at the same time, threatens to overturn our boat and compromise our goal of becoming the best municipality in this country,” said Hendricks.
“The municipality is strategically focussed on building a growth economy underpinned by a sustainable energy supply through long, medium, and short-term plans.
“I will table by the end of this month, a draft annual budget of over R1.2 billion, significantly up from 2021 and 2022. It will include financing our plans to fund sustainable water and energy security over the next three years.”
As part of the municipality’s long-term plans Hendricks said they will develop a 60MW renewable energy plant to cater for the town’s 59.1MW demand.
He said Kouga was also in the process of creating an energy farm or hub to optimise infrastructure, energy reticulation and an environmental impact assessment (EIA) has been commissioned.
As part of their medium-term plans, Hendricks said a basic feasibility study as part of the energy hub or farm assessment is currently underway for the installation of a 20MW solar (PV) plant, as well as the appropriate storage solution.
He said they expect the feasibility study to be completed by the end of June this year, after which a tender will be developed and issued in the second half of this year.
As part of the municipality’s short-term plans, he said they will install a 1MW solar (PV) solution with appropriate storage for Kouga’s critical service delivery infrastructure.
“It is expected that this will reduce Kouga’s own consumption with a commensurate saving out of the approximately 10% own consumption of its annual electricity bill, not to mention the savings associated with generators,” said Hendricks.
He said the critical essential service delivery infrastructure have been identified as, Humansdorp boreholes, Jeffreys Bay waste water treatment works, Jeffreys Bay water treatment works and Jeffreys Bay main municipal building.
Addressing water security, Hendricks said with two of the four plants for the purification of borehole water already completed, the municipality will soon be able to supply drinkable borehole water to residents.
He said the remaining two purification plants will be completed by the end of March.
Hendricks said each plant is installed at a cost of approximately R7 million with the first plant built at the Humansdorp water treatment works and will produce up to 6Ml of clean water per day feeding to the reservoir while the second plant at the Jeffreys Bay water treatment works will add an additional 4Ml of water to the existing reservoir.
The two plants at Hankey and St Francis Bay will be completed by the end of March – each providing 2Ml water per day.
He further said there were currently 30 production boreholes in use.
“The exploration, equipping of new boreholes and connection to the existing water treatment network are also high on the priority list – with up to 20 new boreholes planned,” said Hendricks.
Additional plans that the municipality will embark on includes formalising nine informal settlements in Kouga by dealing with bulk infrastructure such as water, sewage, sanitation, and electricity.
Furthermore, Hendricks said to create a better future for all residents, an innovative and dignified water and sanitation solution was recently piloted across the Kouga region. This forms part of a R22 million project that will see the upgrade of nine informal settlements over the next 12 months.
