The City of Cape Town (CCC) recently announced that they will be aggressively assisting the broad public in alternative power generation, which includes the purchasing of electricity generated by the public which is fed back into the grid.
Businesses and residents alike that have already been feeding electricity back into the Drakenstein grid are curious about whether Drakenstein will follow this approach by the City and what its plans are regarding purchasing electricity from its ratepayers.
Drakenstein Municipality started out being very progressive in its approach to solar PV installations by compensating electricity exporters on a one-for-one basis for every kilowatt hour [kWh] it exported to the municipality.
The policy was, however, changed to what is claimed an unfair approach that is totally in Drakenstein’s favour and not aligned with some of the best practices in the Western Cape.
The following summarises Drakensteins current remuneration:. Drakenstein charges domestic taxpayers R 2-41 per kWh. Drakenstein pays domestic taxpayers R 0-76 per kWh for solar electricity exported to the municipality. Drakenstein accepts all kWh exported by taxpayers to the municipality. Drakenstein pays only for kWh exported equivalent to the kWh bought from the Municipality, taking potential additional kWh exported with no payment to providers
The City’s December 2022 rates for kWh exported:. R0-74 standard rate per kWh exported. R0-25 incentive rate per kWh exported. R0-99 total rate per kWh exported. The current contract stipulates those “exporting electricity have to be net users over a 12 month period, but soon this will fall away, with the City offering cash for kWh exported.”
As for what the local municipality’s plans are in relation to this, Louis Pienaar, Acting Director: Engineering Services responded: “Drakenstein Municipality has competitive tariffs compared to other municipalities. Our tariffs are submitted annually to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa [Nersa] for approval.
“The approval of the respective tariffs is subject to regulatory requirements that must be complied with by the respective licensed distributor.
“Municipalities’ tariffs cannot be compared by simply looking at the kWh cost, but rather by considering the category of the type of tariff applicable to the application. Each municipality’s tariff structure is based on a financial model to cover the bulk purchases, overheads, maintenance and operational expenses.
“The tariff structure makes provision for different categories of end users as per the relevant zoning of the property.
“Drakenstein is investigating ways of generating or purchasing alternative energy to help alleviate the sting of Eskom load shedding.
“In the meantime we are rolling out programmes such as installing Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) equipment at our traffic signal installations as well as generators at our water and wastewater plants.”
Drakenstein Municipality also forms part of the Western Cape Government’s Municipal Energy Resilience (MER) programme to formulate a Municipal Electricity Master Plan to implement future green energy strategies and policies.
The MER programme includes forums with other municipalities to establish green energy solutions aiming to assist with the energy crisis in South Africa.
