Cape Town plans to be free of 4 stages of load-shedding

Cape Town will tender for 500MW of power from independent producers next month as part of its plans to shield residents from the first four stages of rolling blackouts within three years.

Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis on Thursday told councillors the city was working with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) on grid integration studies to determine when and where independent power producers (IPPs) will feed into the local grid.

“We have already made much progress on the first of our three-phase procurement for load-shedding protection, with a 200MW procurement of renewable energy concluded last year,” Hill-Lewis said.

“Tenders are to be awarded in the coming months, with the procurement now in the evaluation phase of technical proposals received from IPPs.”

The second element of the plan takes the form of a “Power Heroes” programme.

“The initiative is based on paying residents incentives for voluntary energy savings, which will entail automated remote switching off of power-intensive devices at peak times. The ‘demand response tender’ for this programme, launched in October last year, is in the evaluation phase, and will also be awarded within the coming months,” he said.

The third element, to be launched in February, involves a “dispatchable energy tender anticipated to yield about 500MW”.

“This tender will not only focus on renewable energy ... but will include all-important dispatchable technologies, such as battery storage and gas to power. These power sources need to generate power for a significant portion of the day to support our load-shedding protection efforts,” Hill-Lewis said.

“Importantly, these dispatchable supply sources need not be located in a city-supply area. We are expecting enough progress on this three-phase procurement — and our other deliverables — to provide at least four stages of load-shedding protection within three years.”

He said procuring 500MW would significantly reduce power cuts, given that a single load-shedding stage requires the city to shut down about 60MW.

The annual adjustment budget was also on the council agenda, including R117m for fuel — driven by rising diesel costs and the need to run generators to keep basic services infrastructure going, he said.

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