‘The City’s Facilities Management Department had great success with the rollout of generators and invertors at various City facilities. It is no easy task to manage facilities in a manner that ensures the safety and productivity of City staff, as well as the public who make use of our facilities and need to visit our buildings. We find ourselves in the midst of very challenging times with the energy crisis, but as an organisation, we have continued in our efforts to provide productive working environments to serve staff and residents throughout our operational hours,’ said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Corporate Services, Alderman Theresa Uys.
The City of Cape Town’s Facilities Management Department has installed generators at the following facilities over the last few months:
• Hillstar Municipal Building
• Ottery Municipal Complex
• Rochester Road Metro Police Building
• Pinelands Municipal Building
• Wesfleur Municipal Building, Atlantis
The City plans to install another eight generators at various facilities before the end of June 2023. These facilities include:
• Bellville South Municipal Building
• Kraaifontein Municipal Building
• Strand Municipal Building
• Brackenfell Municipal Building
• Kuils River Municipal Civic Centre
• Parow Municipal Building
• Goodwood Municipal Building
• Lotus River Municipal Building
The City has also commenced with its inverter and PV Solar installation programme and is currently installing inverters with dedicated circuits to power up key operations relating to public interfaces and revenue collection. These inverters will be commissioned within this week and the PV solar installations will follow.
The facilities to receive inverters include:
• Milnerton Traffic Department building
• Parow Municipal building
• Bellville Traffic Department building
• Goodwood Traffic Department building
The City plans to install another nine inverters and PV solar systems by the end of June 2023 at the following facilities:
· Pienaar Road Traffic Department, Milnerton
· Pinelands Municipal building
· Kuils River Municipal building
· Resource Centre Municipal Complex, Khayelitsha
· Somerset West Municipal building
· Ottery Municipal building
· Fish Hoek Municipal building
· Hillstar Traffic department
· Plumstead Municipal building
Furthermore, the City is working on ways to fast track the supply of Portable Power Stations ranging from 600W to 3600W to use as and where needed in order to support staff with back-up power at the office, or those working remotely, or those stationed at temporary hot desks during load-shedding.
These generators require ongoing maintenance and monitoring which is why the City has invested in smart technologies to enable facility managers to monitor generators remotely. The City is continuously looking at ways to mitigate the risk of load-shedding with the installation of generators, inverters and portable power stations that may be tracked, controlled and monitored remotely.
Hot desks are another practical initiative implemented to mitigate the effects of load-shedding on productivity. As a short-term solution, the City has been repurposing empty spaces like meeting rooms and chambers at key City locations across Cape Town to assist staff who are working remotely with a work space during extended periods of load-shedding.
‘All of these efforts to keep the lights on at our facilities are to ensure that as a municipality, we do everything within our ability to create conducive environments for our staff to serve residents as far as possible. In the end, it is about service delivery and ensuring that we mitigate any interruptions that may delay delivery as far as possible. This requires careful planning and a focused approach,’ said Alderman Uys.
