The City of Cape Town is struggling to keep up with the volume of applications for solar power installations from households, businesses and those seeking compensation for feeding into the grid.
The City is also reportedly struggling with incomplete or incorrect Small System Embedded Generation (SSEG) applications.
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According to the Cape Argus, the turnaround time for these approvals was as quick as two weeks at the end of last year, but now residents and businesses are waiting between two and five months for the City’s approval to install on their properties and feed into the grid. This comes just a few days after Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis announced that demand for rooftop solar PV is at an all-time high, with residents eager to take advantage of the City’s incentive programmes as it strives to be the first municipality to eliminate loadshedding.
In reference to this, Mayor Hill-Lewis explained, ‘Most of Cape Town’s installed solar PV capacity is commercial, but residential applications are what’s driving record-breaking interest levels. This clearly shows the effect of our policy shift to expand how we are actively supporting the uptake of safe and legal solar installations.’
According to Solar Advice spokesperson Sam Berrows, who spoke to the Cape Argus, the City is currently unable to handle the large number of applications coming in daily because the demand for the registration and approval process far outweighs its capacity to complete these applications on time.
Treetops Renewable Energy Systems, a Diep River-based supplier of solar energy equipment with over 400 registered solar systems, reportedly echoed this. It said that aside from affordability and obtaining finance through the right channels, it was struggling to get approvals from the City to actually install the solar panels on roofs.
Treetops sales manager Stefan Ortmann said, ‘We do understand that the sheer volume increase has an impact, but a wait of over five months is not acceptable.’
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Ortmann stated that a major issue they faced as an industry was a large influx of new companies that did not know or follow the rules and installed regardless of approvals, sometimes without even starting the application.
As a result, residents and businesses face R5 000 to R7 000 fines, according to the Cape Argus.
To date, the City has authorised 5 000 systems, and from January to April 2023, it received 2 333 applications – nearly three times the number received during the same period in 2022.
‘Apart from the spike in the volume of applications, many applications are incomplete, do not contain the correct documentation required or misrepresent the design configuration. This adds to lengthy processes and delays and is a health and safety hazard for customers as well as the teams working on the electricity grid,’ the City said.
Berrows, Oortman, and others stated that their staff has struggled to reach City technicians in order to ask questions about their applications, and they hope that the City hears their and their customers’ cries for faster application turnaround times.
The City said it is working on an online application process that will include drop-down menus with the various system and document requirements (among others) to make the application process faster and safer.
‘The City is also investing in human resources to deal with the increased applications but also to position the City and its teams to deal with the new energy environment the City is creating as it works to diversify its sources of energy and reduce its dependence on Eskom,’ it said.
The City has issued a checklist to assist customers in selecting the right system, and while it does not vet private-sector installers, it has developed a checklist to assist residents in exploring this option.
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Picture: Giorgio Trovato / Unsplash