The electricity sector should “look outside” for solutions to the enormous challenges confronting the industry, says Local Government and Traditional Affairs Minister David van Rooyen.

Speaking at the 65th Convection of the Association of Municipal Electricity Utilities (AMEU) Southern Africa in the Vaal, van Rooyen said it was important that electricity challenges – from generation to distribution – were looked at with a view to finding better ways to serve customers.

He added that municipalities were battling with the increasing demand for electricity and the challenge of rising debt due to non-payment by consumers. He called on industry players to embrace new technology, and said the rollout of smart meters by the City of Johannesburg was a good example.

“The use of smart meters should be looked at in order to help us to better manage electricity usage,” van Rooyen said. “Technology is part of our everyday lives and we should use it to better service our people.”

Outgoing AMEU president and City Power Managing Director Sicelo Xulu told delegates that the time had come to engage and find solutions and better ways to manage the sector and that still needed to be done to enable the sector to respond to today’s challenges.

Incoming AMEU president Moferefere Tshabalala said he would continue with the transformation drive that had been initiated and assist municipalities to better manage their respective power utilities. Tshabalala added that unfortunately municipalities and power utilities continued to “work in silos”, and said it was time to open up.

Tshabalala also called on big metros such as Johannesburg to assist smaller municipalities to adopt new ways to manage their electricity while generating new sources of energy and said the biggest challenge municipalities faced was revenue collection and better supply management.

“I believe that through dialogue we can find each other. We need to be open about challenges facing all of us,” he said.

Nhlanhla Ngidi, who represented the South African Local government Association, told the conference that municipalities were being squeezed out of business as suppliers of electricity due to policy changes.

Ngidi said that the time had come for municipalities to look into other streams to generate revenue and invest in their capabilities, and added that the energy mix was one of the solutions that would help municipalities to continue supplying electricity.

He told delegates to seriously look at how the City of Johannesburg had embraced innovative solutions to limit reliance on the national electricity grid as Eskom could not be the dominant supplier of electricity “in a space currently managed by municipalities”.