Join South Africa’s pioneering
Virtual Power Plant (VPP) program.

Connect your solar panels and batteries to the VPP and become an active participant in shaping our future energy landscape.

Financial Rewards

Earn income by selling excess energy and offset energy costs, maximizing the benefits of your renewable energy investments.

Stabilized Energy Access

Connect solar panels, batteries, and energy assets to the VPP for a more resilient power grid and reduced load shedding impact.

Environmental Stewardship

Contribute to a greener, more sustainable energy landscape and reduce Cape Town’s carbon footprint for generations to come.

Get Early Access

Learn More

SOUTH AFRICA’S ENERGY CRISIS

Load Shedding has sadly become all-too-familiar in our daily lives.

Across the country, load shedding casts a long shadow, disrupting businesses, daily routines, and sparking growing uncertainty. The widespread rolling blackouts leave no corner untouched.

Load shedding Hours

3,773 hrs in 2022
7,200 hrs in 2023

Economic Impact

SA’s economy losing up to
ZAR 930 million /day

EVOLVE VPP X CAPE TOWN

Unleashing Sustainable Community Energy

The EVOLVE VPP will harness the power of distributed energy resources (DERs) and incentivize a range of benefits to participants, communities, and the larger grid.

Solar Abundance

South Africa’s solar potential, exceeding 1,600 kWh/m2, offers a bountiful renewable energy source waiting to be tapped.

Charge the Batteries

Harnessing electric energy with captured sunshine and store surplus power for self-reliance even when the sun dips below the horizon.

Pool Excess Power

By joining the Virtual Power Plant (VPP), uniting your excess energy with the community’s, we can create a robust and renewable energy pool.

Get Rewards

Receive compensation for your surplus energy contribution, offsetting your solar panel investment and supporting sustainability.

Optimize Energy Grid

The VPP employs advanced algorithms and artificial intelligence to optimize electricity distribution, ensuring efficient resource utilization.

Community Cohesion

Participating in the VPP empowers Cape Town communities to collaboratively shape a cleaner, more resilient energy future.

Have a question?

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a Virtual Power Plant (VPP)?

A virtual power plant (VPP) is a network of individual distributed energy resources, such as solar PV and batteries that are located in different places. Through aggregation in a VPP, these systems may then be able to participate in trading in the electricity market and providing network services and grid support.

What is defined as an ‘Event’?

City of Cape Town can call upon the Virtual Power Plant when the Western Cape grid operator, ESKOM, declares an alert, warning or emergency, or scheduled load-shedding event, in response to challenging grid conditions.

How can I control my participation?

EVOLVE gives you three options for controlling your participation in VPP events:

Set your Backup Reserve
Your battery will not dispatch to an energy level below your Backup Reserve. Setting your Backup Reserve is the best way to control how much energy you elect for participation and how much you maintain in case of an outage.

Opt-out of a Single Event
When an event is scheduled or active, EVOLVE gives you the option to opt-out of the event through the app. When you opt-out, your battery will stop reacting to the event, and resume normal operation.

Suspend Participation
You have a VPP participation toggle in the ‘Settings’ menu of the app. If you turn this off, your battery system will not react to events when they are scheduled, and you will not be notified of the events. You are still enrolled in the program, however, and can resume your participation at any time by toggling your participation back on.

How do I ensure that I will have enough energy for backup power?

A push notification will inform you that there will be an event. You can adjust your Backup Reserve level then or at any time, based on your own need for backup energy.

What information is needed to successfully enroll?

Many customers will be asked to provide some information so that CoCT can identify the right utility account and determine eligibility.

Where we have information, we will pre-populate the forms, but it is important that the information you provide is the same as the information in your CoCT Municipal Electricity account.

IN PARTNERShip with

Join the Movement

Joining the Virtual Power Pool is simple and empowering. We’ll guide you through the process and provide all the necessary information to get you started.

Sign Up

Fill out the form below to express your interest in joining our Virtual Power Plant.

Consultation and Assessment

After signing up our team of experts will conduct a thorough assessment of your energy assets and requirements. We’ll work closely with you to design a tailored solution that maximizes your energy generation and consumption efficiency.

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Powering the Future Together.

A sunrise starts our every morning. Become part of a collective effort to overcome the challenges of load shedding. Together, we can build a more resilient and sustainable energy infrastructure that benefits us all.