South African taxman turning to solar

To reduce energy costs and dependence on Eskom, the South African Revenue Service (Sars) and the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) have opened tenders for solar installations at several sites nationwide.

Sars noted in its tender documentation that it is seeking solar PV systems to be installed on the rooftops of selected buildings to meet up to 40% of its annual energy requirements, depending on the rooftop’s area.

The taxman wants to set up solar systems at branches in all nine of South Africa’s provinces.

It states that it aims to establish green alternative power that will allow it to improve the sustainability of its facilities, lower these facilities’ operating costs, and reduce generator diesel consumption during load-shedding.

The deadline for the tender closed on 9 December 2024.

Similarly, Prasa has also issued a tender for the construction of solar PV systems at selected sites around the country, citing the significant impact that load-shedding had on its operations.

“Load shedding has greatly interrupted Prasa’s business and Prasa’s tenants. Some of the Prasa operations and businesses depend highly on the availability of electricity, such as trains and depots,” the tender documentation notes.

“Rail operations, being the core business for Prasa, requires no or minimal electricity interruptions to its business.”

Prasa’s spokesperson, Andiswe Makanda, told News24 that the state rail agency is implementing environmentally friendly initiatives to enhance energy efficiency and increase renewable energy usage.

Makanda says that by doing so, Prasa hopes to cut costs, as electricity prices rise by roughly 15% annually, and reduce its demand on the national grid.

Prasa’s spokesperson also noted that the state rail agency hopes to sell excess electricity to third parties to help maximise revenue.

While both companies are trying to reduce their reliance on Eskom, they will still depend on the state power utility.

This point is illustrated by the country’s largest data centre operator, Teraco, which, despite having a 100% renewable energy target, says it can’t ditch Eskom.

The company recently told MyBroadband that it requires Eskom’s transmission network to wheel energy generated by its renewable energy projects and from other Independent Power Producers (IPP) to its data centres.

Teraco has data centres in Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Durban.

Energy wheeling allows power to be moved from an independent energy producer to end users in urban areas via existing transmission and distribution networks.

“This means Teraco will always be connected to the grid. Our solar project is not an attempt to displace Eskom,” the data centre operator told MyBroadband.

“We must work with Eskom, municipalities, and other stakeholders to deliver additional wheeled renewable energy generation capacity.”

Another entity trying to unshackle itself from Eskom’s historically unreliable electricity supply is the City of Cape Town, which requested to take over electricity distribution for its municipality.

While this initially seemed viable, Eskom said it reconsidered its approach to several municipalities requesting to take over their electricity supply.

The power utility said this had to do with the legal separation of the company and the amount of debt owed to the power utility by other municipalities.

The City of Cape Town released a statement saying that Eskom had decided not to transfer or sell any assets to the city due to operational requirements of the Eskom business.

Eskom also said it wouldn’t be in its interests to do so.

Cape Town has made numerous developments throughout the year to try and reduce its reliance on Eskom, including a 7MW solar PV plant in Atlantis and a battery energy storage facility.