MEETING of the Cities’ COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE

The theme of the session was ‘Battery Storage Options for Municipal Generated Energy’ and its purpose was to explore the potential for battery storage in municipalities, including the strengths, weaknesses, and performance of different technologies. The trend of increasing hours of load shedding is set to continue, with damaging socio-economic consequences for municipalities dependent on Eskom for their energy supply. With this, municipalities are exploring their new generation capacity options, including how to guarantee a continuous and reliable supply of electricity to their customers.  Capturing and storing new generation capacity is critical for providing backup power and peak demand shaving, ensuring supply can meet demand.

Contextual background was provided by the South African-German Energy Partnership using a study it commissioned on opportunities and hurdles for battery energy storage systems in South Africa. A Board member of the South African Energy Storage Association provided an overview of the potential of battery storage for municipalities which was followed by an insightful case study presented by Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality who are in the process of designing, raising finance for, and implementing a ground-breaking battery energy storage system project in South Africa.