About 432 households have applied to earn cash by selling their excess solar power to the City of Cape Town via its Cash for Power programme.
Also read: Cape Town makes over R25m in Cash for Power payments
The first window for residential seller applications closed in March. Businesses have been able to earn an incentive for their part since June 2023, Cape Business News reports.
Cape Town is reportedly the first metro to buy excess solar PV from small-scale generators in exchange for their municipal credits and cash.
This is how it works: an electricity seller’s total municipal bill is credited to zero, with the option to apply to earn an incentive beyond the zero balance.
Collectively, businesses and households in Cape Town have earned more than R20.8 million under the programme to date. This amount is largely derived from municipal bill credits from the start of the 2022/23 financial year until 1 April 2024.
It includes R23.5 million on the feed-in tariff and a further R7.3 million, counting the 25 cents per kWh incentive the City added to encourage participation.
There are 1 537 sellers who benefit from the programme as of 1 April. Of these, 910 are residential and 627 are commercial or industrial.
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‘It is exciting to see hundreds of households applying to see if they are eligible to earn actual cash for selling their solar power to the City – a first for South Africa,’ says Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis.
‘Previously, sellers could only be credited against their electricity bill up to a zero balance, but we have made key policy changes to enable the total municipal bill to be credited as well as enabling cash payouts.’
‘We have also launched a new online portal to make registering your solar PV system easier than ever, and very soon we will share good news on the rollout of a cheaper bi-directional meter to feed power back into the grid.’
‘We invite residential power sellers who expect to offset more than their municipal bill, to apply to the City if they wish to earn cash beyond their automatic municipal bill credits.’
‘While the first window closed in March, all applications received will be assessed in the second window, with the dates to be announced in due course.’
Councillor Beverley van Reenen, the City’s Mayco member for energy, reminds those wishing to apply to only offset their electricity and rate accounts that they need not apply. These residents will automatically be compensated on the authorisation of their grid-tied SSEG system with feed-in.
‘If customers are interested [in going] above and beyond this, they can register and get cash for their power – where any remaining credit will accumulate until it reaches a certain amount and then the City will pay you out.’
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Also read:
Cape Town introduces Cash for Power to earn money from solar energy
Picture: Daniele La Rosa Messina / Unsplash