Building resilience to energy insecurity: enabling small-scale embedded generation

The document details the transition of South African municipal electricity distribution from a monopoly to a distributed generation model, focusing on the adoption of rooftop solar PV. It highlights the role of the City of Cape Town as a pioneer in developing SSEG policies and tariffs, supported by GreenCape and the Western Cape Government. The study identifies six levers to drive this transition, including technical support, regulatory certainty, and new finance models, to prevent the 'utility death spiral' where municipalities lose revenue as customers switch to renewable energy. By October 2018, 22 of 25 electricity-distributing municipalities in the Western Cape allowed SSEG, with 18 having NERSA-approved feed-in tariffs.

• The South African small-scale embedded generation (SSEG) market is primarily driven by rooftop solar PV, with total installed capacity estimated at approximately 700MW. Over 200MW of solar PV modules were installed in 2018, and projections suggested the country could exceed 1GWp of rooftop installations by the end of 2019.
• Load shedding in South Africa has significant economic consequences, with Stage 1 to 3 outages costing the economy between R20 billion and R80 billion (US$1.5 billion to US$5.8 billion) per month. This instability, combined with rising electricity prices, has increased demand for alternative energy sources.
• Municipalities face a 'utility death spiral' because their business models rely on electricity sales; as customers migrate to rooftop PV, tariffs for remaining users must increase to cover infrastructure costs, further incentivizing the switch to renewables.
• The City of Cape Town pioneered the SSEG framework in South Africa, starting with a 2012 pilot involving three households. By October 2018, this had resulted in at least 18MW of registered solar PV in the city, improving electricity security and business continuity.
• The SSEG model has been scaled across the Western Cape and South Africa. By October 2018, 22 of 25 electricity-distributing municipalities in the Western Cape allowed SSEG, 18 of which had NERSA-approved feed-in tariffs. Nationally, 18% of local electricity distribution utilities had implemented the necessary regulations and tariffs.

APA

GreenCape (2019). Building resilience to energy insecurity: enabling small-scale embedded generation. https://greencape.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/20190416-GreenCape-Resilience-Reports-Energy-FA-Interactive-3.pdf

Chicago

GreenCape. Building resilience to energy insecurity: enabling small-scale embedded generation. 2019. https://greencape.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/20190416-GreenCape-Resilience-Reports-Energy-FA-Interactive-3.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=GreenCape |title=Building resilience to energy insecurity: enabling small-scale embedded generation |date=2019 |url=https://greencape.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/20190416-GreenCape-Resilience-Reports-Energy-FA-Interactive-3.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{greencape2019building, author = {{GreenCape}}, title = {{Building resilience to energy insecurity: enabling small-scale embedded generation}}, institution = {GreenCape}, year = {2019}, url = {https://greencape.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/20190416-GreenCape-Resilience-Reports-Energy-FA-Interactive-3.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }