The City of Cape Town has issued a tender for a battery energy storage system (BESS) with a minimum rated power output of 5 MW and energy storage capacity of 8 MWh.

Geordin Hill-Lewis, Executive Mayor of Cape Town, announced this at a gathering on the site of the Atlantis solar photovoltaic (PV) plant. The BESS will be built on the same site so that it functions with the solar PV as a hybrid plant.

According to a statement from the city, it is the first metro in South Africa to start construction of its own solar PV plant. The R200 million Atlantis solar PV project is expected to be built within a year. It will be connected to a nearby main substation to feed 7-10 MW directly into the grid.

“This is the first utility-scale renewable energy project in Cape Town and it will be owned and operated by the city. The first power is expected to be delivered near the end of 2025. The idea is to potentially have a number of similar plants rolled out across the metro in years to come,” said Hill-Lewis.

The Atlantis PV project is one of the city’s initiatives aiming to achieve its Energy Strategy 2050 vision of “Energy security for a prosperous Cape Town”.

Hill-Lewis said: “The city currently uses 75% of the tariff income from our electricity sales to buy Eskom power. With the continued Eskom price escalations, we simply have to diversify energy resources.”

Potential service providers are requested to submit their applications on the city’s tender portal before November 20.