Cape Town - Solar is soaring in Cape Town, with the City setting a record for solar PV (photovoltaic) installations last month.
The City received 1 040 solar PV installation applications from residents and businesses, with just over 600 of these in February, which made it the biggest month to date.
This follows the City’s announcement that it will offer households and businesses cash for their excess rooftop solar power in a bid to reduce reliance on Eskom and address the imbalance between electricity demand and supply.
Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said February 2023 was the best month on record for new solar PV installations in Cape Town, with residents looking to capitalise on the City’s Cash for Power programme to help end load shedding.
☀️ 10% of all solar installations in Cape Town since 2018 were in Jan and Feb this year!
Unsurprisingly, we are seeing exponential growth of approved solar installations in Cape Town.
Hopefully our ‘cash for power’ and ‘net generator’ changes are helping speed this up. 💵🔋 pic.twitter.com/2oGwNKgO2R
The City is set to start paying businesses cash for power before June, and residents will be able to start selling power for cash later this year.
“January and February alone account for an impressive 11% of all solar PV applications received since records began in 2018. 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,” Hill-Lewis said.
The City said this was the market response they hoped for by making recent policy changes to end the net consumption requirement so that they can pay actual cash for power, instead of just crediting municipal bills.
Hill-Lewis said the new national tax incentive of a 25% rooftop solar panel tax rebate up to R15 000 would further enhance the viability of solar PV investment. This tax incentive came into effect at the start of this month and was announced by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana during his 2023 Budget speech.
Scatec, a renewable energy company based in Cape Town, believed that with abundant sunlight and wind resources, renewables presented the optimal solution to South Africa’s energy woes.
Jan Fourie, executive vice-president for Scatec in sub-Saharan Africa, said: “The urgency of the situation calls for increased private sector investment in renewable energy projects to fast-track the Department of Mineral and Energy Resources’s Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) and accelerate our economic recovery, by embracing the worldwide transition towards clean energy.”