Cape Town - The City received 10 993 applications for its “cash for power” or small-scale embedded generation (SSEG) feed-in programme.
This data emerged during a presentation by the City to the provincial ad-hoc committee meeting on the energy crisis.
The SSEG programme seeks to pay businesses and residents with SSEGs and other generation capacity for feeding additional electricity back into the grid, and is part of the City’s efforts to mitigate up to four stages of load shedding for its residents by 2026.
The City’s “cash for power” plan was launched in January by mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis who promised Capetonians that, beginning this month, they would be able to earn money from the sale of power fed into the local electricity grid.
This pledge came after the National Treasury gave the City an exemption to pay businesses and residents directly for selling their excess power into Cape Town’s grid.
During the briefing it emerged that in addition to the SSEG programme, the City also had a host of projects in the works to mitigate against rolling blackouts including the Steenbras Pumped Storage, which remains a key short-term lever to mitigate up to two stages of blackouts for the City. Plans are afoot to maximise its capacity.
Committee chairperson Christopher Fry (DA) said: “It is evident that the recent spike in rolling blackouts has no doubt galvanised a strong desire on the part of residents to free themselves from Eskom’s monopoly over electricity generation and transmission.”
At the briefing, the South African Local Government Association (Salga) said it would “support municipalities in the procurement of energy from other suppliers”.
Salga also said it had made proposals nationally for an “aggressive rollout of alternative energy solutions for municipal strategic infrastructure such as water-treatment works, pump stations, sewers, traffic lights and public lighting for public safety”.
mwangi.githahu@inl.co.za