 The impact of residential photovoltaic power on electricity sales revenues in Cape Town, South AfricaDieter Mayr, Erwin Schmid, Hilton Trollip, Marianne Zeyringer and Johannes Schmidt Utilities Policy, 2015, vol. 36, issue C, 10-23 Abstract: In South Africa, electricity is provided as a public service by municipalities. The combination of (a) rising electricity rates, (b) decreasing photovoltaic technology costs, and (c) a progressive tariff system (under which wealthier households support low tariff rates for indigent residents) leads to incentives for high-income households to cover part of their electricity demand by self-produced photovoltaic (solar) electricity. This development is simulated with hourly load profiles and radiation data, and an optimization model for a case study in Cape Town through the year 2030. Results indicate that the majority of higher-income residents are incentivized to invest in photovoltaic power production by 2020 and additionally use home battery systems by 2028. This leads to a steadily increasing gap between revenues and expenditure needs in the budget of the municipality. The budget gap can be reduced by replacing the energy-based tariff with a revenue-neutral fixed network-connection fee implementation of which is particularly effective in reducing incentives to invest in storage. Keywords: South Africa; Residential photovoltaic; Public revenues (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:juipol:v:36:y:2015:i:c:p:10-23 DOI: 10.1016/j.jup.2015.08.001 Access Statistics for this article Utilities Policy is currently edited by Beecher, Janice More articles in Utilities Policy from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.