Saving electricity
By making small changes in your household or business, you can start saving on your electricity bill. Read our tips and useful resources below to help you make smart energy choices and live more sustainably.
Saving tips
We support households and businesses who are committed to reducing their electricity consumption. Using less electricity not only saves you money; it also helps to lessen the burden of electricity costs on all households and the economy, reduces CO2 emissions, improves energy security and supports job creation.
Currently, most of our electricity comes from burning fossil fuels. Therefore, introducing energy-saving practices into your daily routine will also help safeguard the environment and help ensure energy security for our future.
rates and Tariffs Calculator
Do you know how much electricity you consume each month? If not, use our
handy calculator (for residential properties only) for an estimate.
By making small changes in your household, you can reduce your electricity bill by 30% or more each month. If you want to save 50% or more on your monthly bill and make a real difference, you should invest in energy-efficient equipment.
Make use of our saving electricity tips and
top ways to save electricity in the home to get started.
For more background information on electricity-saving, read our
Electricity FAQs.
smart living
Download the
Smart Living Handbook to find out how to make smarter choices that will have a meaningful and sustainable impact on our City, your pocket, and the environment.
Water heating
Switching to a more efficient water heating system will help you save between 25% and 40% on your electricity bill every month. More efficient water heating systems include:
-
Solar water heaters use the heat from the sun to warm up water in panels installed on your roof. During winter or cold spells, electricity back-up is typically used to ensure that the water is heated.
-
Heat pumps work like air conditioners in reverse: they take heat from outside air and transfer it to water inside the heater through a heat exchange system. The unit is typically mounted on an outside wall.
Use our
Checklist for Buying a Solar Water Heater to help you make the best decision.
Our
Water Heating FAQs will provide you with more information about the different kinds of systems and installation options.
Solar PV
More and more households and businesses in Cape Town are choosing to
go solar. Solar PV technology converts energy from the sun into electricity, which can be used in buildings of all sizes.
The City actively encourages safe and legal solar PV installations. All small-scale embedded generation systems, including solar PV, installed within the City of Cape Town electricity supply area must be registered for authorisation.
For general information on renewable energy, read our
Solar PV and Renewables FAQs.
Efficient buildings
Residential and commercial buildings in Cape Town account for approximately 20% of energy consumption and are responsible for the largest proportion of carbon emissions (approximately 38%).
National energy usage regulations for buildings ensure that new and existing buildings are energy efficient.
Find out how to
make your building smarter to reduce utility bills and emissions associated with the building.
The City is committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2050. One of the ways we aim to achieve this is by ensuring that all new buildings citywide are carbon neutral by 2030, and all retrofitting of existing buildings is carbon neutral by 2050.
In our own operations, we are committed to ensuring that all new facilities owned, occupied and developed by the municipality are carbon neutral by 2030. We have already retrofitted some of our existing buildings, including the Civic Centre, and we aim to retrofit all of our buildings over time.
You may want to:
Load-shedding
We are working on mitigating the effects of load-shedding by adding new generation to the grid and enabling households and businesses to install small-scale embedded generation.
Read our
Load-shedding Resilience Guide for easy and affordable ways to protect your home from load-shedding.
Climate change
Tackling climate change and becoming more resilient in our homes, places of work and as a Cape Town community requires the participation and collaboration of each of us. There are many simple actions, some big and some small, that we can each take to contribute.
Visit our
Climate Change page to find out more about what the City is doing to drive and support climate action
Would you like to print this page?
print 