Cape Town aims to protect residents from up to six stages of rolling blackouts by 2026

Cape Town is making strides in its mission to mitigate up to four stages of load shedding by 2026, launching its ambitious energy strategy this week.  This means that with extra capacity from the Steenbras pumped storage power station, residents will be protected from up to six stages of load shedding.

Kadri Nassiep, executive director of energy for the City of Cape Town, told delegates at a recent solar power conference that one of the first steps in the strategy is the need to stabilise the grid.

Nassiep says the city currently has three tenders out in the marketplace.

“The first tender is designed to put non-synchronised generation or non-dispatchable technologies like solar and wind on to the grid. We are looking at awarding 20-year contracts up to 200MW in the next few months.

“It’s been a protracted process, but we are almost at the point where we can finalise the evaluations and then move to award,” he says.

The second tender is the dispatchable round.

Nassiep says this phase will bring on 500MW in total capacity from anywhere in the country, as opposed to the non-dispatchables, which must be connected directly to the Cape Town grid.

Read more in Daily Maverick: How to beat load shedding at home... and other ideas

The third tender is a smaller one of about 150MW, and will look at existing generation projects where, for example, developers have oversized their plants and they now have excess capacity – which the city wants to tap into.

The Smart Energy programme goals are:

• Short-term (by 2026): Increase capabilities to mitigate up to four stages of load shedding.


• Medium-term (by 2031): Reforms implemented to maintain a financially sustainable electricity utility with enhanced operations and asset management practices.


• Long-term (by 2050): Transforming the energy system to be carbon-neutral.

Getting energy solutions to informal settlements

At the same time, the City of Cape Town is investigating alternative energy solutions for informal settlements where grid-connected electrification is not possible.

In city-supplied areas, where feasible, almost 100% of the older existing informal settlements have been electrified. But many newer settlements exist or have formed on land where it is not possible to electrify, such as on wetlands or nature reserves.

City mayoral committee member Beverley van Reenen says the focus is on indoor solar lights, renewable energy public lighting, alternative energy for cellphone charging as well as wonderbags and cooking insulators for affordability and safety.

Alleviating energy poverty and enhancing safety are also key focus areas of the city’s energy strategy that is being launched this week.

As part of the investigation into alternative renewable energy solutions in informal settlements, the city has also conducted community surveys to gain first-hand knowledge of community perceptions of alternative energy and what the hurdles and opportunities are.

The research will inform the nuts and bolts of the Urban Energy Poverty Programme over the next few years.

Damian Conway, executive director of the Sustainability Innovation Lab, iShack, says South Africa is missing a huge opportunity for enterprise development and job creation in alternative energy services within the so-called informal economy.

iShack provides basic solar electricity using small off-grid solar units and is already active in nine informal settlements in Cape Town.

“We’re really pleased that the city is actively engaging with a range of alternatives. We hope that Cape Town will trailblaze a truly market-making policy that enables the poorest households to access the admittedly limited funds for free basic energy so that they can finally have a choice of affordable alternative energy services,” he says.

A partnership between the University of Exeter and the University of Cape Town has led to funding from the UK’s Newton Fund for an alternative approach to public lighting for un-electrifiable informal settlements, a component of service delivery that’s often neglected when considering service provision for informal settlements.

“The absence of appropriate public lighting after dark has profound impacts on the wellbeing of residents,” says Federico Caprotti, associate professor in human geography at the University of Exeter.

“By co-developing the project with the users, and acknowledging them as central to its implementation, the project has shown meaningful improvements to life after dark and contributed to a sense of custodianship.

“The project is one of three similar projects in Khayelitsha implemented by collaborators in the ‘LightUp’ community of practice,” he says. DM