Water Wheel November/December 2021

Abstract

NEWS Cape Town’s first floating solar pilot project paving the way for a more sustainable city potentially inform the design of larger utility scale floating solar PV projects over the next few years through competitive bid processes. “The City has a target to achieve 300 MW of renewable energy generation by 2030, with 50 MW of this comprising of 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. In addition, 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. We thank Floating Solar, the Water Research Commission and the University of Cape Town for helping to enable this project and driving it forward with the city.

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