Solar and battery storage touted as solutions to Bay’s power woes
Rooftops, parking lots and land could all play a vital role in reducing the effects of ongoing power cuts.
The Nelson Mandela Bay municipality’s move to adopt solar energy and battery storage technologies could offer residents and businesses some reprieve from Eskom’s crippling power cuts, according to energy experts.
The only requirement is political will and the right incentives to ensure the plans yield results.
“In particular, the municipality should offer attractive feed-in tariffs to households and businesses wanting to feed excess power into the grid,” energy expert Nick Hedley said.
This would allow the private sector to put vacant rooftops, parking lots and land to use to eliminate rolling blackouts.
“By adding a time-of-use structure as well, households and businesses would be incentivised to install batteries too,” he said.
Energy economist Lungile Mashele echoed Hedley’s sentiments.
“However, they are facing a limitation, which is in grid connection and grid stability,” Mashele said.
“Many small generators are not good for SA’s grid — they introduce volatility, especially capacity from intermittent sources.
“SA’s grid was built for large baseload generators.”
She said an overhaul of the grid network was required to accommodate smaller intermittent generators.
“The solution to do away with blackouts, for example, would be to slash electricity tariffs.”
Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber chief executive Denise van Huyssteen welcomed the idea to mitigate the impact of blackouts and to fast-track alternative power generation.
“Initiatives such as offering incentives through feed-in tariffs to households and businesses who feed excess power into the grid must be implemented with urgency,” she said.
“This has multiple benefits, including reducing pressure on the national grid, fast-tracking the adoption of cleaner renewable energy and helping to ease the burden of the additional costs which consumers have had to take on due to the electricity crisis.”
She said the chamber’s renewable energy cluster, which comprises more than 30 of the metro’s high energy users and accounts for about 20% of local electricity consumption, could potentially bring an additional 100MW of power onto the grid in 2025.
International political and economic expert Dale McKinley said encouraging residents to invest in solar was not a bad idea but a limited one.
“It’s not a long-term solution to end load-shedding and would only benefit the upperand middle-class households,” McKinley said.
Municipal spokesperson Mamela Ndamase said: “We are in support of such initiatives and welcome the implementation of such ideas.”
Rresidents, meanwhile, are bracing themselves for a whopping 18.49% increase in the price of electricity.
The tariffs, if agreed on by the Nelson Mandela Bay council, will come into effect from July 1.
Finance minister Enoch Godongwana in his earlier budget speech announced that those who installed rooftop solar panels from March 1 this year could claim a 25% rebate on the cost, to a maximum of R15,000.