Home owners Leigh De Decker and Mark Beloch recently signed a new small-scale embedded electricity generation (SSEG) contract with the City of Cape Town.

The contract will allow them to feed extra electricity generated by their photovoltaic (PV) rooftop back into the city’s electricity grid and to receive an offset against their monthly electricity account.

Through photovoltaic panels, De Decker and Beloch produce some of the electricity needed to meet their own consumption demands.

“We see this as a wonderful opportunity to promote the uptake of this technology and to applaud the City of Cape Town’s efforts in getting this long-awaited project off the ground,” said De Decker.

The City says it has laid the foundation for the growth of small-scale embedded generation, but it is only through partnership with communities that significant progress towards carbon neutrality can be achieved.

“Just over a month ago, in September, the first such contract was signed between the City and Black River Park, an office park in Observatory. I am thrilled to see another property joining the league of renewable energy generators so soon, and it is heartening to know that Cape Town residents and businesses are taking advantage of such opportunities,” said Ernest Sonnenberg ,the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Utility Services.

“Ultimately it will help stimulate the green economy by increasing demand for solar panels and other sources of alternative energy, which will in turn help create jobs in this sector,” Sonnenberg added.

The City of Cape Town is hoping that this will become the trend, and that in time many SSEG installations will be connected to the city’s grid.
Cape Town’s green drive

The City of Cape Town has set itself a target of sourcing 10% of its electricity from renewable energy resources by 2020 and the roll-out of the small-scale embedded generation tariff supports this goal.

For more than a year, the city has been running a project to find a solution which allows consumers to feed power back into the grid and to receive an offset doing so.

This has been a complex process as numerous factors have had to be addressed, including the establishment of appropriate tariffs; identification of suitable metering systems which can measure power flow in two directions; and the implementation of automated billing systems which take into account both the purchase and sale of electricity.

This innovative project underscores the value of using green energy and allows residents to take advantage of the city’s programme to allow for offsets in exchange for feeding excess electricity into the grid.