The City of Cape Town’s leadership has heard the frustration of local businesses battling against the impact of daily power outages. Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis shared that his team has finalised a plan to add 500MW to its grid and end loadshedding in the city once and for all.
This is the final part of a four-stage plan to rely less on Eskom and help make Cape Town more energy independent. “Power from this new project will be immediately dispatchable to businesses across the city – which is good news for both tenants and landlords,” says Itai Ilouze, Cape Town Head of Broking of Galetti Corporate Real Estate.
At Galetti, we are seeing a rising trend of businesses moving their operations to Cape Town due to the higher levels of service delivery in the city and these plans to combat loadshedding will only accelerate this shift.
Commercial users are expected to benefit from the new program by mid-2023 and private households in 2024.
Creating an energy-independent city
Other initiatives that the City of Cape Town has introduced include:
- Procuring an additional 200MW of electricity from independent power producers.
- Changing the policy of embedded power generation, allowing businesses to generate more power than they consume. The City can then buy back this extra power.
- Any business that has solar panels on its roof can be compensated for generating excess electricity and selling it back to the City.
How much can businesses be paid for generating excess energy from solar?
NERSA has approved a rate of 78,98c per kilowatt and the City has added an extra 25c per kilowatt incentive tariff. This means that power sellers can receive a total of R1,03 per kilowatt with no limit on how much can be sold.
What you’ll need to benefit
Businesses will need to cover the R10 000 cost of installing a bi-directional meter to measure the excess power generated. This will need to be installed by a City of Cape Town-approved electrician.
Application forms for installation can be found on the City’s website.
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