Cape Town launches cash-for-power applications for home solar users

The City of Cape Town has started allowing households to apply to earn cash for excess power generated by their solar PV systems.

Speaking at the city’s 2050 Energy Strategy launch on 12 February 2024, mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis announced that the first round of applications for the Cash for Power programme was open until 8 March 2024.

The Energy Strategy sets out a roadmap to 2050, including short-term plans to protect the metro against the first four stages of Eskom load-shedding by 2026.

‘Today, Cape Town becomes the first city with a formally adopted Energy Strategy, which clearly outlines how we plan to end load-shedding as the most important action we can take for job-creating economic growth,” Hill-Lewis said.

“In the short-term, we are planning for four stages of load-shedding protection by 2026, as we make the great transition from unreliable, costly, and fossil fuel-based Eskom energy, to an increasingly decentralised supply of reliable, cost-effective, carbon neutral energy from a diverse range of suppliers.”

Under the Cash for Power programme, Hill-Lewis said the city would buy as much solar power as households and businesses could sell.

Hill-Lewis slammed President Cyril Ramaphosa for stating the worst of load-shedding was behind the country in his 2024 State of the Nation Address.

“The fact is that load-shedding has gotten considerably worse after every such promise, and already we have re-entered stage six,” Hill-Lewis said.

“It should be obvious to all by now that we cannot wait for the same people who created the crisis to fix it. We must do so ourselves.”

To date, the city has only allowed users to earn credit for electricity fed back into the grid. However, even with this limitation, it is ahead of the other metros in the country.

Cash for Power applications are open for all residential customers on the home user tariff with an approved grid-tied SSEG (small-scale embedded generation) system and bi-directional AMI meter to feed power back into the grid.

In addition, they must be registered as a service provider on both the City Supplier Database and the National Treasury Web-Based Central Supplier Database (CSD), accessible from the links below:

• City of Cape Town’s Supplier Database 
• National Treasury Web Based Central Supplier Database (CSD) 

As per the city’s supply chain rules, successful Cash for Power sellers will contract with the city for three years after appointment.

For the first round, Cash for Power applications should be submitted via email to [email protected].

Any submissions received after 8 March will be kept for the next round, with the date to be announced after the first round closes on 8 March 2024.

Additional power plans

Cape Town’s short-term load-shedding mitigation up to 2026 will be achieved largely through a mix of contributions from the Steenbras Hydro Plant, 500MW of new dispatchable energy, and demand-side management initiatives.

“Overall, Cape Town is planning to add up to one gigawatt of independent power supply to end load-shedding in the city over time, with the first 650MW of this within five years, including enough to protect against four Eskom load-shedding stages by 2026,” the city said.

In addition to the Cash for Power programme, the city has launched a voluntary Power Heroes initiative for households willing to allow the metro to turn their geysers off remotely during peak demand periods.

The benefit of this option is that it allows the user to get one lower stage of load-shedding.

The city is also allowing businesses to sell power to each other and wheel it across the grid, which will add 350MW of decentralised power to Cape Town’s grid.

The city’s energy diversification initiatives and their progress are summarised in the table below