Cape Town’s energy strategy, which has been released for public comment, envisages the addition of 650 MW of new independent generation within five years in line with the city’s stated goal of protecting itself against four stages of loadshedding by 2026.

Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis indicates that the new supply will be secured from various sources, including from city-owned generators, independent power producers (IPPs), from residents and businesses feeding into the grid, as well as through wheeling and trading.

Over the medium term, the intention is to introduce 1 GW of new supply and end loadshedding entirely, he says.

The city is already implementing parts of the strategy, with initiatives under way to  enable small-scale generators to feed into the grid and to procure IPP power.

The draft strategy indicates that priority will now also be given to finalising the contractual and technical arrangements for customers and aggregators to wheel and trade electricity across its distribution network, as well as to expand utility-scale storage systems.

“Ending loadshedding is the most important action we can take for job-creating economic growth [and] Cape Town’s draft energy strategy maps the way toward four stages of loadshedding protection by 2026,” Hill Lewis states.

Short-term loadshedding mitigation will be achieved largely through a mix of demand management programmes, utilising the Steenbras hydro plant to provide relief of up to two stages, and by securing 500 MW of dispatchable energy, which will protect the city from up to four stages from 06:00 to 22:00 daily, he adds.

The strategy also commits the city to optimising energy use and efficiency, as well as to alleviating energy poverty, through subsidy reform, the ongoing electrification and lighting of informal settlements and improving access to informal backyard dwellings.

The three-phase strategy also includes a medium-term goal to 2031 of implementing the reforms required to ensure that the city has a financially sustainable electricity utility and a long-term ambition of transitioning Cape Town to carbon neutrality by 2050.

The draft strategy places particular emphasis on ensuring a “future-fit energy utility business” that is able to adapt its business model such that it can provide financially sustainable energy services in a context of a competitive and distributed system.

It states that over the coming five years the city will seek to restructure the electricity tariff in a way that enables improved cost recovery for fixed distribution system costs.

This tariff reform, the strategy states, should result in a utility department that “encourages private sector participation in energy supply, safeguards the provision of subsidised energy access to indigent households, and ensures that the cost of providing and maintaining electricity infrastructure is fairly distributed across customers”.

The city's long-term intention is also to distribute electricity directly to all customers in Cape Town, including those currently in Eskom supply areas.

The draft strategy, which also makes the case for integrating electric vehicles and green hydrogen into the city’s broader energy system, is open for public comment until July 31.