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Rush for Cape Town’s cash-for-electricity system

Sibahle Malinga
By Sibahle Malinga, ITWeb senior news journalist.
Johannesburg, 05 May 2023

The City of Cape Town has received hundreds of applications each month this year, from residents and businesses wanting to participate in its cash-for-electricity initiative, to circumvent load-shedding.


This was the word from Beverley van Reenen, the city’s mayoral committee member for energy, delivering the welcome address this week at the Africa Tech Week Conference, in Cape Town.

The councillor outlined the city’s steps to mitigate up to four stages of Eskom load-shedding, under the Mayoral Priority Programme on Energy, by making use of technological innovation.

According to Van Reenen, Cape Town’s ongoing multiple renewables initiatives have received significant interest from residents and the private sector, as they look to implement alternative power sources to mitigate load-shedding-related losses.

Over the years, Cape Town has been at the forefront of calling on government to allow it to procure its own energy, in order to wean itself from the embattled Eskom, which has implemented round-the-clock power cuts.

In January, president Cyril Ramaphosa announced that households and businesses will soon be allowed to sell surplus electricity from rooftop solar panels into the national grid.

As part of this strategy, the City of Cape Town set aside R53 million to establish its own cash-for-electricity initiative, to enable the sale of excess power by homes and businesses with small-scale embedded generation.

Providing an update on the initiative, Van Reenen explained that over the past few months, applications have been pouring in.

“February 2023 was the best month on record for applications of residential and commercial solar PV installations, with over 600 applications received. A total of 1 040 applications had been received by the beginning of March.

“This is thanks to our cash-for-power campaign that will soon pay cash to our customers, for the surplus power they produce that will be fed into the municipal grid,” she noted.

As load-shedding accelerates the energy evolution toward the uptake of reliable power supply alternatives, she pointed out that dispatchable energy solutions − which include battery storage, demand side management and wheeling – require an urgent investment in new tech and innovation.

In May last year, the City of Cape Town announced the launch of its first electricity wheeling pilot project. At the time, the city called on interested parties to apply to participate.

The initiative involves the wheeling of electricity to customers who want to buy energy from third-party suppliers that source the electricity from generators connected to Eskom or city electricity grids.

The system, run in George Municipality, is now being piloted with 40 businesses, according to Van Reenen.

“Our electricity wheeling project is at an advanced stage, with several private sector participants as generators and orchestrators. So, we are inching closer to the pilot’s successful completion later this year, due to significant interest displayed by the private sector.

“Cape Town is yet again demonstrating to the rest of the country that political will − coupled with sound administrative leadership that is underscored by a heightened sense of civic duty and an open commitment to partnership with the business community − is a catalyst for growth and development.”

According to Van Reenen, the city's process of delivering on the mayor's Energy Priority Programme to end load-shedding includes the following investments:

  • R220 million on embedded independent power purchase.
  • R288 million on the Power Heroes programme, which looks at voluntary power reduction in return for an incentive.
  • Estimated R1 billion investment in Steenbras Hydro Pumped Storage Scheme (over the next nine years).
  • R640 million on solar PV; R53 million Cash for Power programme, which involves selling excess power back to the city.
  • R50 million in battery storage.
  • R32 million on waste-to-energy.

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