The City of Cape Town has announced its plans to build its first grid-connected solar plant in 2023 – with the possibility of similar plants constructed across the metro in the future.
The municipality has issued a tender for engineering, procurement, and construction of the 7MW solar photovoltaic (PV) plant in Atlantis. The facility will be connected directly to the City’s electrical network.
According to Cape Town Mayor, Geordin Hill-Lewis, the power plant will start generating electricity in 2024 and be in operation for 20 years, with a foreseen annual output of 14,7GWh.
“The City currently purchases most of its electricity from Eskom. High Eskom price escalations expected in future may not be financially sustainable for the City and its residents. It is expected that the Atlantis solar plant will enhance the City’s financial sustainability as the cost of generating the electricity would be lower than the bulk procurement from Eskom. Reducing the dependency on Eskom also means the City can develop and explore more climate-friendly power sources than Eskom’s coal-fired power stations,” he says.
“The investment in construction of the Atlantis plant is expected to result in a R47.2 million GDP increase,” comments the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Energy, Councillor Beverley van Reenen.
How to tender:
- Tender documents may be collected during working hours between 08:30 to15:00 from the 16th of September 2022.
- The physical address for collection of tender documents is: Tender Distribution Office, 2nd Floor (Concourse Level), Civic Centre, 12 Hertzog Boulevard, Cape Town.
- The closing time for receipt of tenders is 10:00am on the 25th of October 2022.
