Cape Town, South Africa

For its 4.9 million citizens it is a great place to live and work. There is a host of important supporting infrastructure including four universities, a growing integrated transport system, broadband infrastructure, an award-winning international airport, the country’s second largest port and world-class hospitals and medical facilities.

Energy Transition

Cape Town is a key hub for green technology in South Africa, drawing significant local and foreign direct investment in the renewable energy and mobility sectors. Between 2013 and 2024, investments in these areas totalled approximately R25 billion, facilitating around 30 new projects. This impressive financial commitment demonstrates Cape Town’s dedication to sustainability and underscores its leadership in the green economy. The City hosts a diverse range of renewable energy companies across various sectors, including solar manufacturing, wind turbine production, electrical manufacturing, fuel supply, professional services and renewable energy project developers and independent power producers . This dynamic ecosystem encourages innovation and collaboration, driving the transition to a sustainable future. Notable renewable energy companies, such as Sola Group, SolarMD, Ener-G-Africa, and GRI have established their local presence in Cape Town. These efforts collectively position the city as a leader in the renewable energy landscape, paving the way for a more sustainable future.

The metropolitan government has had ambitious renewable energy targets since 2003 and is a signatory to the C40 Deadline 2020 Programme along with over 100 global cities. This commits the city to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and will require a near complete transition of electricity supply and transport sectors to clean electricity supported by extensive energy efficiency.

The City of Cape Town is also a signatory to the C40 Zero Carbon Buildings Commitment which commits it to achieve carbon neutrality within its own building stock by 2030 and the city’s building stock by 2050. Additionally, the city is improving energy efficiency and renewable energy in municipal operations by retrofitting streetlights, traffic lights and buildings with energy efficient lighting and installing rooftop solar photovoltaic systems while ensuring real-time data tracking and reporting through its SmartFacility programme.

The City’s energy plans are guided by its Energy Strategy, launched in 2024, titled “Our Shared Energy Future: The 2050 Energy Strategy for the City of Cape Town.” There are three key commitments: (a) Harness New Energy Supply; (b) alleviate energy poverty; and, (c) optimise energy use across Cape Town that are enabled by a Future-fit Utility and Action by Residents, Business and Partners. The Strategy is guided by the principles of reliability, affordability, carbon neutrality and resilience.

Capitalizing on Cape Town’s already booming renewable energy and green technology sector, the city is home to the Atlantis Special Economic Zone for green technology manufacturing. This epicenter of greentech activities provides opportunities and enticements to investors from around Africa and the world. In fact, the Atlantis SEZ is expected to attract around R7 billion (US $400 million) in investment over the next twenty years.

The purpose of creating the Atlantis SEZ (ASEZ) was to unlock the underlying economic value of existing and underutilized infrastructure through the creation of a greentech manufacturing hub.  Opportunities within the green economy include the uptake of resource efficiency technologies and job creation. Key sectors are renewable clean energy; sustainable transport; water management; waste management; sustainable agriculture/land management; and green buildings.

ASEZ supports the manufacturing sectors to become suppliers and component manufacturers for the renewable energy sector, in particular, components identified in the South African Renewable Energy Masterplan (SAREM). The ASEZ creates an enabling, favourable environment for the local production of batteries, inverters, solar trackers and much more.

Hydrogen in Cape Town

The city is home to local research and development capacity in the form of two of the three Hydrogen South Africa (HYSA) institutes- HySA Catalysis at the University of Cape Town, HySA Systems at the University of the Western Cape (the third being HySA Infrastructure at North West University). These were established by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) in 2007 to support the South African participation in the nascent, by rapidly developing international platforms in Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies. They focus on ways of harnessing South Africa’s mineral endowments to promote both the hydrogen economy and renewable energy use.

Solar 

As of August 2024, the City of Cape Town had 145 MVA of approved grid-tied solar PV installations. The City of Cape Town in undertaking several solar power initiatives currently with the aim of increasing access to energy from alternative sources of up to 650MW by 2030:

• The “cash for power” small-scale embedded generation (SSEG) programme where customers can be net generators and feed-in excess energy to off-set their municipal rates account and then be paid “cash” for any power over and above that.
• A wheeling pilot is underway to test grid and system integration, billing, metering and contracting to allow various contracting arrangements for energy to be sold across the City’s grid.
• The City’s Independent Power Producer Programme, which will provide renewable energy at an affordable cost and support the diversification of the City’s energy supply.
• The City-owned Renewable Energy Generation programme include installing rooftop and ground mounted PV at various City facilities from key office blocks to waste water treatment works. The first “utility” scale system of 7MW is under construction in Atlantis, the first for a South African municipality, and investigations are underway for a 30-60 MW solar PV plant at Paardevlei.

Links:
Cape Town Government
South African Oil & Gas Alliance
Wesgro Trade & Investment
GreenCape
Atlantis Cleantech Special Economic Zone