Cape Town sets solar power record
The City of Cape Town received its highest monthly photovoltaic solar (PV) installation applications during February 2023.
Residents and businesses submitted 1,040 solar PV applications to the city in 2023, 440 in January and 600 in February.
These two months alone accounted for 11% of all solar PV applications the city has processed since it began keeping records of applications in 2018.
The sharp increase comes shortly after the city announced a cash-for-power scheme allowing residents and businesses to sell electricity back to the grid at 78.98c/kWh in the next financial year.
The metro will pay a further 25c/kWh on top of this to encourage more consumers to self-generate and sell excess electricity to the metro.
“This is encouraging progress towards more and more businesses and residents helping us to end load-shedding over time by selling their excess power for cash,” said Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis.
“This is exactly the market response we were hoping for by making recent policy changes to end the net consumption requirement so that we can pay actual cash for power instead of just crediting municipal bills.”
Out of 9,700 applications that the city has received since 2018, 5,078 projects have been commissioned.
The graph below shows the number of solar installation applications the City of Cape Town received every month from the start of 2020.
Cape Town is in the midst of a three-phase procurement process for load-shedding protection, which aims to shield residents from the first four stages of Eskom’s power cuts.
Hill-Lewis said that the national government’s announcement of a 25% rooftop solar panel tax rebate up to the value of R15,000 should further enhance the viability of PV solar projects.
The rebate was revealed by finance minister Enoch Godongwana during his 2023 Budget Speech and came into effect at the start of March 2023.
Cape Town-based solar company AWPower recently told MyBroadband it was struggling to keep up with the demand for solar panels and backup batteries.
“The moment that it was announced that load-shedding was going to persist for the next two years, the phones rang, and emails came through at an extremely high rate,” said AWPower managing director Christiaan Hattingh.
“Speaking to other installers, we all confirmed that there’s no way we’re going to get ahead this year with installations.”
Hattingh added that people jumped at the opportunity to buy solar panels when the incentive was announced.
The table below sets out Cape Town’s guidelines for how its cash-for-power initiative will work.
| City of Cape Town cash-for-power initiative steps | |
| Commercial customers | Residential customers |
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✓ Available now in addition to the existing credit offset against monthly account.
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✓ Available later in 2023 in addition to the existing credit offset against monthly account.
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✓ PV system and inverter required. See this guide.
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✓ PV system and inverter required. See this guide.
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✓ Installers must apply to the City to authorise the system for grid connection. See this guide.
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✓ Installers must apply to the City to authorise the system for grid connection. See this guide.
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✓ The City does not charge an authorisation fee.
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✓ The City does not charge an authorisation fee.
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✓ Authorised customers will be placed on the applicable Non-Residential Small Scale Embedded Generation tariff. See here: tariff
✓ Meter changes are required where applicable.
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✓ Authorised customers need to install a specialised Advance Metering Infrastructure or AMI meter. Cost is approximately R12,850.
*The City is looking at how to bring the cost down for households
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✓ An additional Advance Metering Infrastructure (AMI) administration fee may also be applicable. The cost will be quoted as part of the authorisation process where applicable.
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✓ A monthly Advance Metering Infrastructure (AMI) administration fee will be applicable.
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✓ Credit roll out: Immediate: The City will measure the amount of energy fed into the City grid. The credit will be reflected on the monthly municipal account:
Commercial customers will be credited with 73,87c p/kWh (2022/23) plus 25c p/kWh incentive for each kWh fed into the City grid. *There is also a little used commercial tariff of 60,91 c p/kWh for customers wishing to account for the green benefit. |
✓ Credit rollout: later in 2023: The City will measure the amount of energy fed into the City grid. The credit will be reflected on the monthly municipal account: Residential customers will be credited with 78.98c p/kWh (2022/23) plus 25c p/kWhincentive for each kWh fed into the City grid. |
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✓ Credit offset against monthly electricity account.
✓ If some credit remains after the offset, the City will pay this to the customer. Payments will only be made on amounts over R5 000 and on a monthly basis. Amounts of less than R5 000 will be held back until the total exceeds R5 000, and will then be paid.
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✓ Credit offset against total monthly municipa
✓ If some credit remains after the offset, the City will pay this to the customer. Payments will only be made on amounts over R1 000. Amounts of less than
R1 000 will be held back until the total exceeds R1 000, and will then be paid once per year.
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✓ How much can be sold by a customer?
The amount of energy that they can produce is limited by the size of their system which is limited by the size of their connection to the City grid.
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✓ How much can be sold by a customer?
The amount of energy that they can produce is limited by the size of their system which is limited by the size of their connection to the City grid.
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✓ How to apply
Visit: application forms to get the application forms. Submit via email.
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✓ How to apply
Visit: application forms to get the application forms. Submit via email.
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For more tips and guidelines for the City metro, please see: SSEG FAQs.
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