South African municipality spent R24 million to reduce its dependence on Eskom

The Kouga Local Municipality has spent R24 million on a battery energy storage system to reduce its reliance on Eskom.

Kouga falls under the Sarah Baartman District Municipality in the Eastern Cape, and is situated along South Africa’s southern coastline near Gqeberha.

The municipal seat is in Jeffreys Bay, while the 2022 national census recorded the municipality’s population at 107,041.

The new battery system was built in the coastal holiday town of St Francis Bay, and is the first municipal-scale installation of its kind in Kouga.

Electricity procured from Eskom during lower-cost periods is set to be stored in the system and then supplied to the network when both energy demand and Eskom tariffs are high.

This will help the municipality to manage its bulk electricity purchases more efficiently and reduce costly penalties incurred when the town exceeds its allocated electricity.

These penalties amounted to R3.2 million during the 2024/25 financial year, which is money that Kouga Executive Mayor Hattingh Bornman said could be better spent elsewhere.

“That is money we want working for our communities,” Bornman said. “By investing in battery storage, we are addressing the pressure behind these costs while building an asset that will serve Kouga for years to come.”

The R24 million investment included the battery system itself, associated infrastructure upgrades, and the work required to integrate it with Kouga’s existing electricity system.

Commissioning of the project was successfully completed in September, with the system now confirmed to be ready to perform its intended demand-management functions.

The investment forms part of a larger drive within the Kouga Local Municipality to support growing communities and attract investment in local businesses.

“For residents, this means a municipality investing in the reliability of essential services,” Bornman said. “For businesses, it means infrastructure better equipped to support growth.”

“For Kouga, it creates a platform for future renewable energy integration and takes us further towards reducing our reliance on Eskom.”

Bornman said the municipality would use the performance data gathered from the St Francis Bay installation as a guideline for future energy investments across the municipality.

The battery system is the latest in a series of technological innovations implemented across Kouga to improve service delivery in recent years.

These include the use of acoustic technology to identify leaks in underground water systems and advanced purification plants for the use of borehole water, among others.