African Utility Week kicks off with pledge to ensure water resilient future

The 17th annual African Utility Week kicked off in Cape Town on Tuesday, highlighting a pledge of commitment by the water industry to ensure a water resilient future.

The event came as South Africa and some other countries in Africa were experiencing a severe drought that had not be seen in decades.

African Utility Week always has a strong focus on water and this year key water industry stakeholders and water utilities from across the continent will take part in signing a pledge to commit to FLOW (For Love of Water), said Justin Friedman, founder of FLOW, a civil organization dedicated to the conservation of water.

"We will ask participants to commit time, money, resources, energy, actions, or all of these, to make a significant impact on water consumption and conservation and to make this pledge towards their commitment to champion water conservation. We will keep track of their progress and announce the results and successes at next year's conference," Friedman said.

The conference programme will address the latest challenges, developments and opportunities in the power and water sectors: ranging from generation, T&D (transmission and distribution), metering, technology and water.

South Africa's nuclear future will also feature high at the event.

"If simple, honest energy planning is done, nuclear should form the foundation of South Africa's energy supply," said Anthonie Cilliers, Programme Manager of Nuclear Engineering at South Africa's North West University.

Cilliers was part of a panel discussion at Nuclear Power Africa as part of African Utility Week.

"I believe nuclear energy is being misrepresented by many parties because it does not fit personal interest. Nuclear power is on record the safest energy source of all, it is clean and provides the most stable form of electricity available today," he said.

Unfortunately nuclear energy has large capital costs attached to it making it difficult for private investors to have an appetite for it, according to Cilliers.

"When deployed it will, however, provide in all our energy needs - taking away private investors' opportunity to make money," he added.

South Africa's nuclear program hit a snag last month when the High Court in the Western Cape ruled that the government's nuclear deal is "unconstitutional and unlawful."

The court ordered the government to set aside the deal which would see the procurement of 9.6 gigawatts of nuclear energy.

The deal is expected to cost one trillion rand (about 77.5 billion U.S. dollars).

The South African government has been pursuing the nuclear program to make up power shortage which is expected to stall growth in gross domestic product.

African Utility Week is the flagship energy event organized by the multi-award winning Spintelligent, a leading Cape Town-based trade exhibition and conference organizer, and part of Clarion Events Ltd, based in the UK. Endit