We have reached an unpassible point in Cape Town

The latest "Day Zero". It was 20th May 2018.

Just a reminder that the water consumption in a well run city is 400 litres per person per day.

We are currently at 87 "allowed".

We have halved our consumption in the past two years from 1,2 billion litres per day to 600 million.

Getting from 600 million to 500 million sounds easy, but when you started from 1,2 billion, each 100 million gets more and more difficult until it gets impossible.

And the City made 20th May 2018 "Day Zero" based on the unrealistic goal of 500 million litres per day. Forgetting about summer. Forgetting about the heat and wind. Forgetting about the visitors to Cape Town, one of the top cities to visit in the world. http://www.capetownetc.com/news/cape-town-top-city-telegraph-travel/

We are now at that impossible and unpassible point.

The city must understand that we cannot get below 600 million litres per day.

We need the water we need to use and we also need the water borne sewerage. As guaranteed in our constitution, water services act and South African Human Rights commission, and as guaranteed due to the design of modern cities.

This is the way the City designed our system.

It is truly their problem now.

No more load shedding will work, unless people actually defect in large numbers and just take responsibility for themselves.

Play the cards right - David Lipschitz's Letter in the Cape Times on 1st December 2017

Much is being written about Eskom's failure and the reasons for it.

It is sobering to think that when Medupi coal power station was originally budgeted, it was forecasted to be complete by November 2015, and Kusile by April 2017. If this 9.6 GW was already on the grid, the fiscus would be earning R286 billion more per annum and another two million people would be employed. Instead of being "R50 billion under budget", as Minister Malusi Gigaba recently said, we would be R300 bn over-budget.

It is time for people to realise that you can tax the input side of the economy as much as you like, but it is the output side of the economy that will make you orders of magnitude more money in income, and also in savings due to not having to pay out so much unemployment benefit.

Simple Solutions Exist : Letter in the Cape Times on 16th November 2017

I wish to point out to our government that even if our dams were full, we would still need desalination.

You see, the population has more than doubled in the past 20 years. Our dams are still almost the same size, probably smaller, due to silting, even with the new Berg River dam.

And our dams were built 30 years ago or more because we are in a drought area. This is not news!

And they were built to give us five years of water in the event of a drought. Now they give us two years of water. So assuming the dams can give us half the water we need, then we should already be desalinating 600 million litres of water a day.

In the winter / rainy season, we should not be using any dam water. By the end of winter, all our dams should be full. And all our embedded water systems should be clean and full. This includes swimming pools, all backup systems and aquifers. And our swimming pools should contain drinking water, also doable.

I've met someone who was working on desalination for Cape Town in 2010. The project was shelved because it rained. But as I have already said, this is so incredibly short sighted.

Solutions are at hand. They are modern, simple and inexpensive. And they should be implemented as soon as possible.

PS, not in the paper: The latest in desalination technology can be found at Sorek. And water at about R8 per kL is cheaper than a lot of us are paying in Cape Town, especially with tiered water rates, and the top rate being over R300 per kL. Spring water can cost R12 for a litre.

Tariff increases will kill incentives to save electricity and water

David Lipschitz Letter to the Cape Times published Mon 8 May 2017 in their Insight Section

THE City of Cape Town has published their draft tariffs for the 2017/18 financial year. Search for "draft electricity consumptive tariffs 2017/18" on the City's web site.

My calculations are based on people living in accommodation valued at more than R1 million. The poor still get their incentives and in fact the poor using more than 350 kWh per month will get up to 23.5% discount of their electricity usage.

And service fees for large users are increasing too, in one case by as much as 120%, so we can all look forward to higher inflation come July when this city, that works for us, makes it more difficult to work with us.

My calculations show that for someone using 600 kWh a month the price increase is 2.8% and someone using 1200 kWh a month the price increase is also 2.8%.

For 600 kWh it changes from R1125 domestic tariff excluding service fee, to R1156 home tariff including the fee, a 2.8% increase.

The 1200 kWh changes from R2493 domestic tariff excluding service fee to R2562 home tariff including the service fee, 2.8% increase.

But 300 kWh changes from R562 to R702, a 25% increase.

And 100 kWh changes from R187 to R400, a 214% increase.

For myself, a few years ago, we were changed from "Lifeline" to "Domestic" and from July this year we will be changed to "Home".

Being incentivised to use less has fallen by the wayside.

Note that the free water allowance is falling away! So if you are using 10 kL a month, and you were paying R66, you will now be paying R98, a 48% increase. Plus the free sewerage component is also falling away, increasing this increase even further.

It seems to me that the financial incentives to save electricity and water will cease on July 1, when these new measures come into play.

At some point, economics says that if you are prepared to pay the price, you can get what you need.

People might choose to buy more water and electricity instead of other luxuries.

And our water crisis will get much worse as people's financial psychological incentive to save is removed.

We might even end up with load shedding again, as people stop worrying about how much electricity they are using and just use as much as they want.

I tend to think that energy efficiency measures will simply go out of the window and people will use as much as they want.

This seems to be the case in my mind, where even though I am a very energy-conscious customer, I just don't see the point of saving electricity and water, when perhaps I can afford to pay the higher rates. There is just no incentive anymore for saving.

The city is putting up their prices. They are telling their customers "if you can afford it, we will supply you; and if you can't afford it, please move to another city".

The free water allowance is falling away, which means that the incentive to do all you can to use less than 6 kL of water a month, and boast about not pay anything, is meaningless.

Grid tie, without batteries, solar electric is already cheaper than City of Cape Town electricity. It could be up to half the price, depending on circumstances. And battery capability is increasing in leaps and bounds and prices are coming down, so we will soon be at grid parity with batteries. Grid parity is where one can make one's own electricity cheaper than one can buy it.

As I've been writing in this newspaper for years, it is time for residents to work together to produce their own electricity and water, at a much cheaper cost than our government can provide it, and in fact sell this cheap electricity and water to the city and to our residential neighbours.

Besides paying or moving, another opportunity is to move into "townships". This way I get a much cheaper house, with all the benefits that come with this, and I can afford to pay for security with the savings I get.

I think we will see enclaves of "rich people" living in the middle of townships, within the next few years. The "poor" won't want to move into "rich" areas, when they see the overtaxed rich, moving to them.

Lastly, existing homeowners who have paid for infrastructure numerous times are in effect subsidising new entrants into the market. New suburbs and new parts of suburbs and densification is happening all over the place. It seems to me that these people are being way undercharged for the services they need.

Lets suppose that a new power station is required for a new suburb.

Why should the entire population be forced to pay for it? And why do new suburbs need external power stations in any case?

• Lipschitz is an energy analyst and owner of My Power Station.

City's Golden Goose Eggs Running Out. David Lipschitz Letter to the Cape Times published Wed, 3 Aug 2016

THE article refers: "De Lille talks tough on renewable energy" (http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/de-lille-talks-tough-on-renewable-energy-2051898).

The City of Cape Town has been buying renewable energy from the Darling Wind Farm IPP (Independent Power Producer) since 2008.

And the City has been selling REC's (Renewable Energy Certificates) to companies that want to "go green" for almost as long.

So why anyone needs to "take legal action" is beyond me.

Legislation created between 2005 and 2008 and the SABS NRS 097 standard just need to be adopted.

To supply the grid with renewable energy in Cape Town requires 15 laws and 10 standards to be followed, and three documents to be filled in.

In the USA there is one law, two standards and one document. In Germany there is only an inspection by a qualified inspector.

Eskom and the the City of Cape Town have gone out of their way to make it as difficult as possible for people to supply the electricity grid. And now that we are getting to the point where everyone, rich and poor, can make their own electricity, including using batteries cheaper than Eskom and the City can provide that electricity, they are suddenly realising that their golden goose's eggs are running out.

After about three years of trying to get a meeting, I finally had a meeting with Ian Nielsen, the City of Cape Town's finance manager, on December 3, 2013, where I discussed this problem and its associated opportunities.

I said that by 2017, people would be able to make electricity cheaper than they can buy it, including the use of batteries, and that people would then "defect" from the electricity grid.

I also said that private people and businesses want to work with the City to help the City become more efficient and to make the City a healthier place to live.

The City has ignored these requests.


This letter also appeared in The Argus today (Wed, 3 Aug 2016) under the heading "Electricity Grid Defections on the Cards".

Life or Death Matter: David Lipschitz's letter in the Cape Times on 8th March 2016

Life or Death Matter

According to the City of Cape Town web site, dam levels are at 38.7 percent, while last week they were at 40.5 percent. In 2014 they were at 81.2 percent. Theoretically Cape Town has 21 months of water left, assuming no rain, but with dams silting up, who knows how much water we really have?

See http://www.capetown.gov.za/en/water/pages/weeklydamlevels.aspx

Cape Town's dramatic population increase over the past 20 years, together with hardly any increase in dams, combined with the drought over the past two years, and lack of imagination in the City of Cape Town council and at provincial level, led to the problem.

Some people are calling for "Level 3" water savings. If the City implements Level 3 water savings, there will be an even more dramatic reduction in income for the City.

Many people have already installed pool covers and with a reduction in watering allowances on gardens, people are seeing a 50 percent-plus drop in water consumption, with an associated decrease in income going to the City, even with the massive price increases for large, home-based water users.

At Level 3, people might find ways to stop buying City water altogether! People and organisations are already finding ways not to buy electricity due to the massive price increases, together with less Eskom and municipality electricity being available. Cape Town's lack of water is a big problem, made much worse by decades of bad planning, and bad thinking! Desalination could solve our problem, but government isn't thinking about that - yet.

If people were allowed to install roof top solar electric systems on their houses, and if we were allowed to feed our excess electricity into the grid at a reasonable price, the excess electricity generated could be used to desalinate water. This is much cheaper than building new dams, and dams take years to build and need rain and mountain water - and we just don't have this time, nor, with climate change, can we expect the needed rain anytime soon.

If the City runs out of water, we'll all be dead within four days, so perhaps allowing rooftop electricity is truly the answer! Many people have planned their retirement, but isn't it better to plan to be alive next week?

Unpublished Letter: 20th March 2015: Eskom's possible 24% Electricity Price increase

On March 19, Executive Deputy Mayor and Financial Director in the City of Cape Town, Mr Neilson, announced that Eskom wants a 22.27 percent increase instead of the currently approved 12.69 percent increase. The City of Cape Town is blaming Eskom for the delay, but the City have already delayed their usual budget announcement by about a month as they have been waiting for NERSA to confirm this higher increase.

The City blaming NERSA for the delay is hypocritical. What isn't hypocritical is the huge increase that consumers will get, not just in electricity prices, but as electricity is in everything, everything is going to increase, including the cost of petrol and diesel which have big electricity components. Considering massive wage increases demanded by union members, plus this electricity increase, one can expect car manufacturers and mines to close down due to this increase and the South African economy is going to suffer, as if a "junk bond" (non-investment grade debt) financial status we also earned on March 19 isn't enough!

The reason the City delayed their budget announcement was because they've been expecting this additional increase! Rumours have been circulating for some time of a proposed 24% increase. NERSA's actual suggested increase is 22.27 percent and historically the City has increased tariffs by more than Eskom, so if Eskom put the price up by 22.27 percent, then we can expect a City increase of more than 22.27 percent.

Note that the after years of very high price increases NERSA moderated Eskom's requests for this year and next to eight percent, but Eskom has already managed to push the increase to 12.69 percent and now they appear to be getting towards 22.27 percent. One should note that Eskom's 22.27 percent increase is close to 17 cents per kWh, so the City only needs to increase their electricity tariffs by about 10 percent to recover this increase, and if they add inflation, then we should expect an increase of about 15 percent!

But the City have never chosen to increase tariffs by the cents amount Eskom have given them, and rather increased tariffs by the same or a higher percentage than Eskom have been given. This is grossly unfair.

For example, if Eskom charges the City 50 cents per kWh and the City charges homeowners R1.70, then if Eskom puts the price up to 60 cents, which is a 20 percent increase, the City could increase the price to R1.80, which is a 5.9 percent increase, rather than to R2.04, which is a 20 percent increase. Taking this into account, the City could "give back" to its homeowners and limit the increase to 11 percent whatever happens, and the City will still not lose any money when looking at the increases the City have already earned over the past seven years. Many more people would come to live in Cape Town, a City which would have relatively cheaper electricity prices than the rest of the country.

The benefit of these increases is that homeowners, including ones in townships, will shortly, with the right financial arrangements, be able to make their own electricity cheaper than they can buy it, including using batteries, and therefore a sea-change will be upon us as everyone gets into the electricity generation and sharing game.

South Africans, inventors and entrepreneurs, will force the Eskom monopoly to come to end, and a true competitive environment will finally emerge.

Yours faithfully,
David Lipschitz
​Portfolio Head of Energy on the Greater Cape Town Civic Alliance (GCTCA) Exco.​

"Power stations should be embedded in the system and owned by ratepayers". Insight article by David Lipschitz in the Cape Times on Friday March 13th 2015

Dear all

Article in Friday's Cape Times Insight Page. They called it "Power stations should be embedded in the system and owned by ratepayers".

Dear Editor

Ian Neilsen's announcement, in yesterday's Cape Times, that the City of Cape Town will get into the gas power station business - "Power cuts are costing Cape Town R1 billion a month" - is interesting and on the surface seems as if it should be applauded.

Neilsen said, at the Energy Efficiency Workshop at Old Mutual on March 10, that Angola is flaring its gas, and that this gas could be brought to South Africa.

Flaring is a process that has happened for decades where miners mine the oil, and burn the gas, which they see as a valueless by-product!

At a gas conference in Johannesburg on February 20, I learnt that South Africa will probably be able to directly import gas from the off-shore gas fields off the North West Coast of South Africa and offshore Namibia. In the short term, this might also be shipped to Saldanha Bay as a port of entry into South Africa. The short term in the energy business is five years!

I asked what about the new Mozambican gas fields and was told that all this gas is already sold to Asian countries who are prepared to pay more for this gas than the "market price", and more than we South Africans are prepared to pay.

I also learnt that building a gas pipeline from Saldanha Bay will take at least two years and the technology to take very high pressure gas off ships and decompress it to land​-based working pressures is incredibly expensive. Neilsen said that there are ships that can decompress the gas themselves. But how expensive are these floating decompression ships, and how much demand is there for them worldwide?

So even if the City of Cape Town goes full steam ahead with its new gas strategy, the gas is at least two years away from getting to Eskom's Ankerlig power station, near Atlantis, which currently runs using diesel. And if the City starts building a gas power station in its own territory today, how long will that take, and what of EIA's, building permits, etc? How far is the City down the road of actually working out how to implement their gas strategy?

Therefore it seems to me that Ian Neilsen is being irresponsible by promising the Western Cape that our saviour is imported gas, which is at least two years away from actually helping us with any kind of energy generation.

Businesses that are already looking at alternatives might delay their purchase decision while waiting for the City's new power stations to come on stream, and might actually be much worse off, as opposed to taking action now.

We already know that South Africa's load shedding will continue for at least another five years and probably longer. Some weeks it will not be there, but sometimes it will be daily.

What we really need is for the Western Cape government and the City of Cape Town to allow the local economy to dramatically grow by allowing embedded generation (EG) on peoples' and businesses' rooftops, gardens and fields.

Statistics from utilities in the US show that "avoided costs" in the transmission and distribution system are more than the cost of allowing net metering and EG.
 ​
Job growth in cities which allow EG are 10 times faster than the economy as a whole and that 75% of installation jobs are local and cannot be exported.

Furthermore, the levy, a tax that every electricity user in this land has paid since 2009, should be used for the purpose it was designed! At this moment this levy is 3.5 cents a kWh and the recent budget wants to push this up to 5.5 cents a kWh!

The City should immediately take the government to the Constitutional Court to get this money for proper net metering, and if the government is not prepared to allow this, then the tax should be declared illegal and the money should be repaid to all electricity users.

I look forward to the City communicating the reality of the electricity situation in the Western Cape, and while I would like the City to have power stations, I believe that these power stations should be embedded in the system, owned by the City's shareholders, that is, its ratepayers, rather than the City itself. This system is far more efficient and less prone to corruption and time consuming delays.

Yours faithfully,

David Lipschitz

Portfolio Head Energy GCTCA ExCo

Ph 021 813 9895

More people need to put in place embedded and micro power generation

Insight Article in the Cape Times today: "More people need to put in place embedded and micro power generation".

Dear all

Many people have been asking me "what happens if there is a blackout" and I've been replying to you and also saying, please wait a week, as I've written to the Cape Times and if they publish I'll send out the email and if they haven't published within 2 weeks, then i'll also send out the email.

I pray that you enjoy reading this email and that it allays your fears of a complete breakdown "blackout" of the South African national grid. As more and more people take responsibility for all or part of their electricity and water needs, so the risk of a complete meltdown gets less and less. At the same time as this, as Eskom does more and more of the Planned Maintenance it MUST do on its power stations and the national grid, the less chance there is of catastrophe.

Best regards, and thank you for all your support. There is no way I could continue with this endeavour without the support and encouragement I receive from you all.

David

---

Dear Editor

More and more people, including MP's interviewed after President Jacob Zuma's State of the Nation Address, are asking about the chance of a nationwide electricity blackout. Such a blackout would be a catastrophe because of no water pumped, no fuel, no transport, fridges and freezers stopping to work, and after a few hours or perhaps two days, riots and civil war as people look for water and food.

The national electricity grid is about R100 billion behind on maintenance, so that means that the chance of sections of the grid going down are relatively big, as compared with there being no grid maintenance backlog.

The chance of all the power stations going down at the same time gets bigger and bigger as Eskom does less and less maintenance.

But recently, it has realised that it has to initiate load shedding so that it can do maintenance work.

I just pray that it is taking down enough of the power stations for long enough to do the required maintenance. I'd rather have four hours of load shedding a day and no chance of a blackout than 2.5 hours of load shedding a day and the chance of dying in two days time.

But there is a silver lining to the crisis.

People are installing generators, whether they are petrol, diesel, gas or renewable energy. As people and companies become self-reliant, the grid becomes more stable and the chance of a mass blackout gets less. As this is happening, more people are installing pool covers and water tanks, which also protect the need for water.

Meanwhile, Eskom has finally come to the party and asked businesses with private generators to register themselves on an Eskom database. It pays for these businesses to be part of its system, and sometimes asks these businesses to turn their generators on to prevent load shedding. In this case, Eskom pays for all or part of the cost of running the generators. But Eskom still don't want these businesses to reverse-feed the grid, so an opportunity is still being missed.

Resilience is built into the system. If only the government (ANC and DA) would allow reverse-feed, homeowners and shopping centres and other people installing generators (of any kind) could provide excess electricity into the grid, stabilising it even more.

Eskom has said for decades that embedded generators destabilise the grid, but this is plainly untrue. Turkey has confirmed the country's wind turbines have stabilised the grid. The US is installing more embedded generators, because this provides resilience and stabilises the grid and, therefore, the economy.

So the more people, businesses, shopping centres, industry and mines take responsibility for micro and embedded generation, the better for all South Africans poor and rich.

And if Eskom puts up electricity by 24% in July, private homeowners who install battery based systems might actually be able to save money on their electricity needs.

And, of-course, these homeowners aren't effected by load-shedding, except perhaps for cooking and heating elements, but even those might be economically powered come July.

From a City of Cape Town point of view, imagine if the DA had followed through and allowed Feed In Tariffs in 2009 and Net Metering in 2011. Cape Town would not be affected by load shedding, we would have the head offices of businesses based in Johannesburg moving to Cape Town, and the Western Cape would be booming, sustainably.

Yours faithfully,

David Lipschitz

Portfolio Head of Energy on the Greater Cape Town Civic Alliance Exco.

My Story: Creating South Africa's second Utility without any government incentives or public borrowing

Dear friends

In 2008, the government announced Feed In Tariffs. I was there. In Parliament. Invited by a Member of Parliament who I already knew because of my Energy Research, which started in about 2004.

In 2009, the government implemented Feed In Tariffs, but made them impossible to get. No one got them! In 2011, the government said that Feed In Tariffs were illegal and changed to the British Tender System. In the meantime Britain had just changed from the Tender System to the Feed In Tariff system because the Tender system had failed!

The Tender System led to over-regulation and over-regulation leads to corruption.

Meanwhile Eskom compares (benchmarks) themselves with Enel in Italy. And Italy suffered from the same problems as South Africa. great Feed In Tariffs, but no implementation. If you want to follow this approach, then Enel is the company to follow.

In 2011, the City of Cape Town announced Net Metering which they implemented in 2012 and changed in 2013. And today in 2014, not one person, organisation or company has got a Net Metering system in the City of Cape Town.

The DA has learnt from the ANC. Say one thing whilst doing another. This is called GreenWashing and it leads to corporate and private investment, which then finds that the situation isn't real, and then these investors close up shop and leave.

The DA and ANC's solution? Nuclear Power, Coal Power and Frack the Karoo. Are these a good idea? Do they solve South Africa's peak demand problem? Are they water and environment friendly? Where does the waste go? How much water do they use? Do they pollute? Are there more modern 21st Century alternatives that give 24 hour "base load" electricity?

In the meantime Billions of Rands has been wasted by thousands of businesses, investors, private individuals like myself, NGO's, NPO's, and many others, trying firstly to be ready to meet the demand, then trying to fit in with regulation and then trying to work out what to do to radically increase South Africa's electricity supply.

Many of these people were happy to give their time free of charge, but most of these people have been chased away and have given up.

South Africa is a resource rich, labour rich and capital rich country, with a lot of goodwill. It should be growing at 10% after inflation per annum, i.e. at 16% including inflation. But it isn't. Why isn't it and what can we do about it? And why has the goodwill evaporated?

The South African economy is close to R4 trillion per annum. 10% in real terms is R400 billion. The government is a 1/3rd of the economy, hence R133 billion in tax to government. This is a lot higher than all the money that can be gotten by taxing the things that make the economy work, for example electricity, water, rates, transport. And it can be done without government borrowing. And every year the backlog in schools, hospitals, school teacher salaries, etc, can be addressed, with change to spare and without government borrowing, and the tolls on all South Africa's roads can be removed, as they won't be needed.

If you are interested in these answers, in hearing my story, and learning why I and others are creating a new market for electricity in South Africa, email me and we'll be happy to come and share with you.

I have 15 minute presentations, one hour presentations, and presentations all the way up to detailed one day workshops. And if you'd like a week of my time, we can also arrange this. So far, it takes me about 3 days to tell my entire story and explain all the parts that make up the new system that I have developed. I am happy to have discussions and I am happy to talk off the cuff without notes and without tape recorders. If you want to record the sessions you are welcome. If you want to invite your entire staff for a motivational talk, you can also do this.

Ke nako: the time is right for rapid, sustainable, secure, environmentally friendly and inexpensive electricity generation which creates an environment for rapid, sustainable, secure, environmentally friendly and inexpensive economic growth.

I look forward to hearing from you.

David.
Skype: MyPowerStation
Email: david@mypowerstation.biz

When do we get to grid parity

This graph for home owners in the City of Cape Town, using updated information from the IRP, eg 8% increases till 2015, then 16% increases (pages 20,21). We got to grid parity in July 2012. This is the point that a home owner can produce electricity with PV (photovoltaic) panels, using net metering, at the same price or cheaper than they can buy it. Net Metering means buying and selling electricity at the same price.