The problem now is not load shedding but price
Rising electricity costs are leaving millions of South Africans in the cold and dark this winter. Electricity tariff increases averaging 9% for municipal customers kicked in on Wednesday 1 July.
This followed a similar Eskom increase three months earlier. Tariffs have risen roughly six times faster than inflation since 2007, a 2026 analysis found.
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More than a third of South Africans live below the R1,109-a-month poverty line, and electricity price hikes are forcing them to choose between food, warmth, safety or power.
Shelton Damon, a casual worker from the West Coast, says, "Electricity is very expensive so we can't afford to cook or heat water every day. R50 used to buy us 50 units, but we get only 18 units now."
Affordability is not a new problem. Families were already having to make bleak choices during the covid pandemic, a Southern African Faith Communities Environmental Institute (SAFCEI) survey of 100 households revealed. Families sacrificed groceries, children went without breakfast, rent was paid late, and there wasn't enough money for taxi fares, toiletries, airtime and funeral services, they told researchers.
But now, as rising power prices bite even harder into the household budget, families are returning to candles, firewood and paraffin stoves - fire hazards which spark runaway fires and deaths in informal settlements.
At a recent SAFCEI meeting, Rachel Arendse, a great-grandmother from Riverlands, a rural settlement about 60km north of Cape Town near Koeberg, said her family was connected to the grid but struggled to keep the lights on.
Lydia Petersen, a community mobiliser for SAFCEI and P90, said municipalities regularly deduct money owed to them for other services when residents purchase units, so their money buys them less electricity than expected.
Meanwhile, the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) has approved further tariff hikes for April 2027.
The government has a free basic electricity (FBE) programme for vulnerable households which is increasingly vital as prices rise, but it reaches only about a fifth of the people who qualify.
Only two million of ten million households which qualify for FBE have access the electricity minister, Kgosientsho Ramakgopa, told Parliament in 2024. The ministry did not respond to repeated queries about the 2026 numbers. In May, Ramakgopa said that the department was considering increasing FBE from 50kWh (kilowatt hours) to 150kWh per month for indigent households.
The Public Affairs Research Institute has found that the 50kWh of FBE a month provides only "survival access" to eligible households. PARI's transition programme head, Dr Tracy Ledger, makes a powerful case for universal, affordable access to power in her book, Hungry for Electricity.
The international grassroots climate movement has launched a campaign to increase the amount of free basic electricity (FBE) from 150kWh (kilowatt hours) to 350kWh per month through renewable energy sources, said campaign manager Ferron Pedro. This is gaining momentum nationally.
Rising costs are not the only electricity stress on lower-income communities, since they are also most affected by "load reduction", which is set to continue until March 2027. This switching off electricity during peak hours - when families need it most - has hit Gauteng townships, including Soweto, and densely-populated rural settlements in Limpopo hard.
As wealthier households turn to rooftop solar and batteries, the gap between those who can afford alternatives and those who cannot is widening.
Nuclear mirages
South Africa cannot fix energy poverty with costly nuclear mirages. Energy and climate justice campaigners like SAFCEI are opposing plans for a second nuclear power station at Duynefontein, 20km from Koeberg. SAFCEI, Earthlife Africa and Greenpeace Africa have launched a court case challenging its proposal, citing its reliance on an outdated environmental impact assessment. SAFCEI is concerned that 'new nuclear' could enrich a small elite and be a gateway to corruption.
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Nuclear energy is not the only option on the table. Renewable energy is more affordable and faster to build. But so far much of the investment in renewable energy has been private.
Instead of focusing on Duynefontein, the government should invest in lower-cost renewable energy solutions and expand FBE to every household that needs it.
Load shedding may be over, but South Africa's electricity crisis is not.
Francesca de Gasparis is the executive director of SAFCEI and Claire Keeton is the senior research & advocacy lead.
Views expressed are not necessarily those of GroundUp.
