Cape Town deploying US$65 million solar-plus-storage project to ‘reduce Eskom reliance’

LinkedIn
Twitter
Reddit
Facebook
Email

A solar-plus-storage project is being planned for the legislative capital of South Africa, as the city looks to move “away from Eskom reliance and towards a load-shedding-free Cape Town”, its Mayor said.

Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis announced that the city would design, build and operate a solar PV plant with battery storage to the tune of 1.2 billion Rand (US$65 million). The Paardevlei project near Somerset West will “yield up to 60MW of renewable energy” although the official size of the either portion was not revealed.

This article requires Premium SubscriptionBasic (FREE) Subscription

Enjoy 12 months of exclusive analysis

  • Regular insight and analysis of the industry’s biggest developments
  • In-depth interviews with the industry’s leading figures
  • Annual digital subscription to the PV Tech Power journal
  • Discounts on Solar Media’s portfolio of events, in-person and virtual

Or continue reading this article for free

A media statement did say that the project would protect the city against one full stage of load shedding from grid operator Eskom. It is part of a 500MW renewable energy procurement from independent power producers (200MW of which will conclude in 2023), the third phase of a broader effort to protect the city from load shedding.

“This project is another critical step in our journey away from Eskom reliance and towards a load-shedding-free Cape Town. We are confident that Cape Town will be the first metro to free our economy from power disruptions, and ensure a green and just energy transition,” Hill-Lewis said.

A feasibility study for the project will now be undertaken, to be completed by the end of the year with commissioning of the project planned for August 2026.

It will be supported financially by the C40 Cities Finance Facility (CFF) initiative, which offers cities technical and financial assistance in their energy transition. The CFF is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Government of the UK and the Agence Française de Development (AFD).

The City is also launching a demand management scheme which will be awarded in the next few weeks, the Power Heroes Programme, which will incentivise voluntary turning off of of power-intensive devices.

Eskom struggles to maintain grid reliability and resiliency but is also deploying its own renewable and energy storage projects to shore up its network.

Last month, Energy-Storage.news reported on the latest of these, a 513MW/2GWh RFP for battery storage for which bids are due July 5, 2023. That followed on from other tenders including a 343MW/1440MWh procurement last year, on which the first project broke ground in December.

See all coverage of the South African energy storage market here.

Read Next

June 23, 2025
The Australian government is set to cut CIS tender process times to around six months as a 576MWh solar-plus-storage site has been approved in Tasmania.
June 20, 2025
DESRI, Origis Energy and rPlus Energies have progressed the financing or construction of major large-scale solar and storage projects across the US, totalling 2.8GWh of BESS capacity – all outside of Texas and California.
June 19, 2025
LCOS for battery storage in the US has declined enough recently to offset increases between 2021 and 2024, according to Lazard.
June 18, 2025
Developer Ilmatar and investor Nuveen Infrastructure have put a 30MW/41MWh BESS in northern Finland into commercial operation.
June 18, 2025
The Philippines Department of Energy (DOE) officially opened its hugely anticipated fourth Green Energy Auction (GEA-4) round to registrants earlier this week.

Most Popular

Email Newsletter