NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
QUESTION FOR WRITTEN REPLY
QUESTION NO.: 2556
DATE OF PUBLICATION: 9 SEPTEMBER 2011
Ms C C September (ANC) to ask the Minister of Economic Development:
Whether (a) his department and (b) the entities reporting to him have
implemented any energy-saving (i) practices or (ii) devices for buildings,
offices and boardrooms in the 2010-11 financial year; if not, why not, in
each case; if so, what are the relevant details in each case?
NW2782E
REPLY
The Economic Development Department and five of the agencies reporting to
it namely, the Competition Commission, Competition Tribunal (Tribunal),
International Trade Administration of South Africa (ITAC), South African
Micro-finance Apex fund (Samaf) and Khula Enterprise Limited are
accommodated at the dti campus. The Building Management System (BMS)
governs all buildings, offices and boardrooms at the campus. Through this
system, lights are automatically switched off between 19H30 until 07H00,
air conditioners between 19H00 to 05H00 and geysers between 20H00 â 06H00
daily. The whole campus is using energy saving bulbs.
In addition to these, the Competition Tribunal has since September 2011
implemented a recycling project for tin, paper and electronic equipment.
These quantities are recorded and as at end March 2011, the Tribunal had
recycled 87.6 kgs. In addition, the Tribunal purchases recycled or tree-
friendly paper for office printing purposes and encourage reduced size
printing and or printing on both sides of the paper. They also re-use
scrap paper for printing and made a conscious decision to print their
2010/2011 Annual Report on recycled paper. The Tribunal has reduced the
number of hard copies to be printed to a minimum and produced the bulk on
CDâs instead.
The Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) is not located within the dti
campus and its energy-saving measures include:
Heating, Ventilating, Air Conditioning (HVAC) and Electrical Systems
A complete upgrade of the HVAC and Electrical systems was done as part of
an energy saving drive. The upgrade was completed end of 2010.
Board Rooms and Offices
All fluorescent light fittings were replaced with efficient energy fittings
which reduced power consumption by 30% in the main Building (Building 1)
and 6% in Building 2. These energy efficient lights operate with sensors
to turn off when offices are not in use. Board rooms and meeting rooms
have been fitted with dimmers for efficient power usage and these lights
are turned off when not in use. Signs have been put up requesting staff to
switch lights off when leaving the rooms.
Through-out the Premises
The lighting along the passages and walk ways are fitted with sensors and
at night they will automatically turn off and only come on when they sense
person(s) movement along a given area.
Air conditioning
Old water and air cooled chillers were replaced with two high Efficiency
chillers. The running periods for the Air conditioning system are
controlled by timers which turns the system off after hours and over
weekends.
Power Factor Correction
Power factor correction units have been installed in the IDC buildings.
This has resulted in a big savings on the maximum demand per month.