Mayor announces opening of City’s independent power procurement process
16 February 2022
This morning, I was pleased to announce that the City of Cape Town is opening its first round of procurement of power from independent power producers. The tender documents are available on the City’s website. I made this announcement during the opening plenary of the Solar Power Africa conference, currently taking place at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.
Over the coming months, the City of Cape Town will procure up to 300MW of renewable energy.
The City will be considering proposals from IPPs for projects between 5–20MW that will allow us to access an affordable and reliable electricity supply, especially those that are able to help us reduce our reliance on Eskom during peak times of use. We will consider proposals from a range of projects, including generation-only projects, generation-plus-storage projects, and storage-only projects.
During the plenary, I asked Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe whether the national government is committed to opening the way for municipal generation. The Minister’s response was that his department “would not stand in Cape Town’s way”.
It is crucial to the City that we are not only able to keep the lights on during off-peak times, but that we are able to supply households and businesses with electricity when demand is at its highest.
Accordingly, over and above our push to procure new capacity in the first tender process, a second tender for dispatchable generation projects over 20MW, which can be brought online in a short space of time, will follow.
I would like to thank the City’s Executive Director of Energy, Mr Kadri Nassiep, and the Mayoral Committee Member for Energy Cllr Beverley van Reenen for all their work in preparing this tender in record time.
Cllr van Reenen said, ‘The City of Cape Town has shown its commitment to energy security by working flat out to ensure we get IPP projects up and running as soon as possible. We cannot afford to wait any longer than necessary to ensure Capetonians have reliable and affordable access to electricity.’
Energy security is one of the great social justice issues of our time. Energy security means businesses succeeding. Energy security means more jobs. Energy security means meaningful economic recovery and growth. We are excited to partner with independent producers in working towards the progressive, poverty-ending goal of sustainable energy security in Cape Town.
Issued by Media Office, City of Cape Town, 16 February 2022
