Cape Town: GreenCape, a non-profit organisation that drives the widespread adoption of economically viable green economy solutions from South Africa, presented a report of ten years between 2014 and 2024 on the small-scale embedded solar Photovoltaic (PV) programme of the City of Cape Town that helped to unlock approx. 713 to 1,140 full time equivalent (FTE) jobs.
With this, an investment of R1.7 billion to R2.6 billion was facilitated within the Cape Town. The power was generated since 2024 to date is equivalent to power about 150,000 homes.
The City of Cape Town has been seen as a pioneer in programmes to promote the diversity of energy supply and green economy investment at the heart of many other solar benefits in Cape Town.
Member of the Mayoral Committee for Energy – Alderman Xanthea Limberg said that the City of Cape Town’s progressive small-scale embedded generation (SSEG) solar PV promotion programme focuses on creating an enabling environment for the growth within the sector. Significantly, between 2014 and 2024, the programme attracted considerable investments of more than R2.6 billion in the SSEG value chain and added over a thousand jobs in the local economy.
The programme unlocked approximately 140 mega-volt amperes (MVA) through grid-tied systems, with the added capacity boosting residential and commercial customers at the peak of Eskom’s load-shedding crisis. The game-changing work within the SSEG sector of the city, resulted in approximately 6,400 authorised grid-tied SSEG systems by June 2024 that unlocked Cape Town’s remarkable renewable energy potential.
Over a year following the innovative authorisation processes of the city and streamlining of applications in 2024, the figures are even more impressive. Authorised grid-tied systems total 13,398 and the installed capacity is 251.6 megavolt amperes as at June 2025 enough to power about 150,000 homes.
Much of the development of the SSEG operations was done ahead of finalisation of national regulations, but the industry was changing every day. They had to be a bastion of proactive energy planning in heavily regulated national government legislative environments. They did this not only to help enhance energy security but to also empower both residents and businesses to become energy prosumers.
The City of Cape Town thus established itself as a progressive, proactive and pioneering organisation at the coal face of rolling with the punches and trends as far as possible. They thanked the businesses, households and the sector for being absolutely vital partners in this achievement and especially the hardworking City team that has helped to make this all happen.
The City of Cape Town still remains hard at work to solve challenges such as the missing authorisation step; many customers do not complete the final authorisation step to ensure legal compliance of the grid-tied system. In 2026, the Energy department will focus on the efforts on expanding awareness on the authorisation steps and to ensure that systems are legal, compliant and safe.