City of Cape Town gets energy boost with new 1.2 MW private rooftop solar plant

29th July 2014

By: Natasha Odendaal

Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

  

Font size: - +

A 1.2 MW solar photovoltaic (PV) plant, positioned on the rooftop of a Cape Town office block, would feed excess electricity into the City of Cape Town’s electrical distribution network.

The Black River Park solar project would sell electricity back to the city for 49.72c/kWh – lower than the rate at which the office park buys electricity from the municipality.

“The approval from the City of Cape Town marks a considerable breakthrough in the pursuit of electricity users who invest in independent power production to sell energy back to the distributors during periods where it is not needed on site,” South African PV Industry Association spokesperson and Sola Future Energy MD Chris Haw said in a statement this week.

South Africa-based Sola was responsible for the design, construction and operation of the project, as well as the procurement of all regulatory approvals.

The roof-mounted solar PV system, in Observatory, was able to generate just under two-million kilowatt-hours a year from about 5 500 modules.

The solar plant formed part of a multifaceted approach to reducing the carbon footprint of the 74 000 m2 office park as it moved to become more “self-reliant and efficient”.

The office park, which hosted more than 100 companies, including the Green Building Council of South Africa, had several greening initiatives on site, including a car-pooling network, reverse osmosis plant for landscaping irrigation and on-site sorting for recycling, explained developer and Black River Park co-shareholder Joubert Rabie.

The park boasted “forward-thinking, environmentally conscious” green lease agreements, which saw landlord and tenant sharing responsibility for the effective running of the building and committing the parties to adopting environment-friendly principles.

The second phase of the project, which comprised a further 500 kW of solar power, was approved after the initial 700 kW plant began operating above expectations in August 2013.

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

Comments

The content you are trying to access is only available to subscribers.

If you are already a subscriber, you can Login Here.

If you are not a subscriber, you can subscribe now, by selecting one of the below options.

For more information or assistance, please contact us at subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za.

Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):

Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format

Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):

All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.

Already a subscriber?

Forgotten your password?

MAGAZINE & ONLINE

SUBSCRIBE

RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA

SUBSCRIBE

CORPORATE PACKAGES

CLICK FOR A QUOTATION