Premier

Whilst the Western Cape Government (WCG) does not have the constitutional mandate to operate in the electricity/ energy sector (i.e. procure large scale utility power stations from a third party and sell produced electricity), its Disaster Mitigation mandate, spearheaded by the Department of Local Government, has enabled the development of the Western Cape Energy Resilience Programme (WCERP). It is important to note that while the WCERP aims to lessen dependence on Eskom, it does not seek to fully displace Eskom’s role, particularly in managing load shedding.

It is estimated that 710MW of rooftop solar PV has been installed in the Western Cape^[1] reducing the Western Cape’s reliance on Eskom.  This has been achieved through the WCERP efforts of supporting municipalities to enable rooftop PV (also known as Small Scale Embedded Generation - SSEG) and by enabling the market of suppliers and consumers to take up rooftop PV through provision of market information.

Other notable steps that have been taken thus far in 2025 and prior include:

• Household support: Distribution of 91,160 load shedding packs.
• Municipal Support:
  • Grants to support municipal own energy projects (e.g. Hessequa Solar and Battery Plant and electricity master plans and cost of supply studies),
• • Transactional advisory and related support for the municipal procurement of power from the market.
• Business Support:  Small scale embedded generation (rooftop Solar PV) and provision of alternative energy systems to SMMEs at trading hubs.
• WCG Facility Resilience: Solar PV installations at 17 WCG buildings and energy programmes accross142 Health and Education facilities.

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  [1] Source: https://www.ntcsa.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Weekly_System_Status_Report_2025_w24.pptx. Previous estimates were 535MW of Rooftop solar PV installed by 2024 with source: GeoTerraImage (in collaboration with SAPVIA) Solar PV installed capacity data.