The City of Cape Town has installed a pilot floating solar photovoltaic (PV) system at its Kraaifontein Wastewater Treatment Works in partnership with the Water Research Commission, the University of Cape Town and floating solar energy developer, Floating Solar (Pty) Ltd.
The city became the first municipality in SA to own a floating power plant in South Africa. The facility includes a floating solar PV array, as well as a ground-mounted PV system to determine evaporation savings and relative energy generation performance of floating solar PV technology.
Under the pilot project, data will be collected over a 12-month period to potentially inform the design of larger utility scale floating solar PV projects over the next few years through competitive bid processes.
“We are extremely pleased that the City of Cape Town is enabling this potential with this pilot project to investigate this potential,” said Peter Varndell, the spokesperson of Floating Solar (Pty) Ltd.
The City of Cape Town says it has identified over 60 high potential projects – with a combined capacity of over 450 MW – that will be well suited to benefit from the floating solar pilot project.
Floating solar to aid land-scarce Cape Town reach renewable energy targets
“The City has a target to achieve 300 MW of renewable energy generation by 2030, with 50 MW of this comprising City-owned solar PV plants. The City has been fighting to move away from the sole reliance on Eskom and to diversify the energy mix for cleaner and more affordable and secure power for all,” said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Energy and Climate Change, Councillor Phindile Maxiti.
“Given that vacant land in the city is very expensive and rooftop solar PV systems are relatively small, Cape Town aims to explore floating solar PV systems for larger scale solar PV installations as part of its pioneering work to diversify the energy mix, to lead by example and to take climate action leadership. Importantly, great things can only be done with great partners,” added Maxiti.
Globally, floating solar has rapidly become the third pillar of the Solar PV industry. Floating solar also has some attractive advantages for cities like Cape Town. The technology helps reduce water loss in catchment areas by minimising evaporation and preserves land for other commercial uses. Floating solar could help Cape Town deal with its recurrent water scarcity and land use challenges.
Approximately 1 000 water treatment works across South Africa are well suited for development of floating solar due to significant on site power demand that requires a sustainable energy source.
