City of Cape Town opens Cash for Power residential applications

The City of Cape Town has become the first city to enable residential households to earn cash for power from their solar PV generation systems.

Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis announced that a first round of applications is open until 8 March 2024 for households to earn actual cash from selling their excess solar power to the City, going beyond the existing automatic crediting of municipal bills.

Hill-Lewis was speaking at the launch of the City’s Energy Strategy at the Cape Town International Convention Centre on Monday. The strategy sets out a roadmap to 2050, including short-term plans to protect against the first four stages of Eskom load-shedding by 2026.  

In the short-term, the municipality plans to protect customers by four stages of load-shedding by 2026.

‘’In Cape Town, the most exciting part is that residents and businesses are going to play a crucial role in helping us to end load-shedding by working together as Team Cape Town. We will buy as much solar power as households and businesses can sell to us under the Cash for Power programme. Households can also volunteer for our Power Heroes programme to remotely switch off geysers at peak times in a bid to avoid a full stage of load-shedding. And in another first, we are enabling 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 in time,’’ said Mayor Hill-Lewis.

PHOTO: Pixabay

Mayco Member for Energy, Beverley van Reenen, said that customers wishing to only offset their electricity and rates accounts, do not need to apply and will automatically be compenstated on authorisation of their grid-tied SSEG system with feed-in.

If customers are interested to go above and beyond this, they can register and get cash for their power – where any remaining credit will accumulate until it reaches a certain amount and then the City will pay you out,' said Councillor Van Reenen.

Hill-Lewis said the City of 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.

How to apply to get Cash for Power

Cash for Power applications are open for all residential customers on the home user tariff with an approved grid-tied SSEG system and bi-directional AMI meter to feed power back into the grid. For more information, visit: https://www.capetown.gov.za/City-Connect/Apply/Municipal-services/Electricity/apply-to-sell-surplus-sseg-energy-to-the-city

Interested parties are required to first 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 registration: https://www.capetown.gov.za/City-Connect/Register/Business-and-trade/Register-as-a-supplier

National Treasury Web Based Central Supplier Database (CSD) registration: https://secure.csd.gov.za

Cash for Power applications for this round should be submitted to hoosain.essop@capetown.gov.za by 8 March 2024.

 

Any submissions received after this date will be kept for the next round, with the date to be announced after this first round closes on 8 March 2024. As per Supply Chain rules, successful Cash for Power sellers will contract with the City for a period of three years after appointment.

View the energy strategy here

 

Done By: Mitchum George