City of Cape Town Plans to Cut Loadshedding by 4 Stages by Buying Excess Energy From Businesses and Residents

Tuesday, January 24, 2023 at 6:06 PM by Lerato Mutsila

The City of Cape Town is well on the way to making loadshedding a thing of the past for its residents
Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis announced that the city can now procure excess energy from Cape Town businesses and in time, its residents
The Cape Town mayor said the new initiative has made investing in a solar system more attractive to Capetonians

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CAPE TOWN - The City of Cape Town is light years ahead of the rest of South Africa and has an awesome plan to cut loadshedding by four stages in the metro.

The City of Cape Town plans on buying electricity from businesses and residents. Image: @geordinhl/Twitter & stock image
Source: Getty Images

Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis announced on Tuesday, 24 January, that the city will now pay cash and offer incentives to businesses that supply the metro’s grid with excess power. Residents who generate their own electricity will be offered the same opportunity later in 2023.

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President Cyril Ramaphosa says loadshedding can't be solved overnight, leaving Mzansi fuming

The development in the municipality’s plan to completely bring loadshedding to an end in Cape Town comes after the National Treasury granted the city an exemption for a competitive bidding process.

According to Business Tech, the metro needed the exemption because South Africa’s legislation doesn’t account for a scenario where cities would procure energy from independent power producers.

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Residents in Cape Town are already protected from one stage of rolling blackouts most of the time but this initiative and other projects in the pipeline are aimed at shielding municipal customers more.

Mayor Hill-Lewis said the initiative has made investing in solar systems more attractive as payments to businesses will be possible before June 2023 but every Capetonian can cash into the project before the end of the year, News24 reported.

South Africans weigh in on Cape Town’s plan to buy electricity for businesses and residents

South Africans celebrated the City of Cape Town for coming up with innovative solutions to loadshedding.

@AyandaMaqhoboza asked:

“Why is this not part of a national programme to get people to install solar urgently and quickly to boost the grid?”

@thiathumanenzhe said:

“These ones have some viable ideas. At this moment where there’s no power, you are not even incentivised to go solar, say for example tax credits.”

@leona_kleynhans claimed:

“Soon only DA-run municipalities will have reliable electricity!”

@EmilevanRooyen2 added:

“This… is called selfless leadership. Something Liberation movements, Trade Unions, and Revolutionary movements in SA don't have.”

@myopinionis7 commented:

“ANC and EFF won’t like this one bit.”

City of Cape Town gets clean audit for 2021/22 financial year, but peeps question fairness of service delivery

In a similar story, Briefly News reported that the City of Cape Town has once again received a clean audit from the Auditor General (AG) for the 2021/22 financial year.