About 3000 shacks in the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality will get solar power for lighting and charging cellphones, Eastern Cape officials said on Tuesday.

"The first phase is expected to consist of approximately 3000 installations of a basic photovoltaic (PV) system that consists of one PV panel, a battery, charge controller, four LED lights with switches and a 12V car cigarette lighter socket to charge mobile phones," chairman of the provincial legislature's infrastructure committee Andile Mfunda said in a statement.

This was part of a pilot project, one of the first its kind in the country, and was expected to cost around R12.9 million. A further R7m would be spent on the maintenance and monitoring of the system.

Mfunda said depending on the success of the pilot phase and the availability of money, cooking appliances such as gel stoves could also be provided and about 50 solar streetlights installed in the municipality.