The rapid shift by so many businesses and people to install their own panels and batteries is causing headaches for Eskom, the already troubled utility. Every kilowatt generated by privately owned solar installations is a hit to its bottom line. Eskom’s coal-burning plants, which provide most of South Africa’s power, are old and in poor shape.
Power cuts have subsided recently, but it wasn’t long ago that Eskom had to turn off electricity to some areas for hours at a time — a practice called “load shedding” that hurt the economy and fed public anger. During the worst days of load shedding, the latest of which came in early 2024, even Ms. Graham-Maré, the deputy electricity minister, installed a solar system in her home. Her energy bill, she said, fell by two-thirds.
Multiply her hack by the thousands and you have what South Africans call Eskom’s “death spiral.” Well-off customers lower their bills with solar, which causes Eskom to lose money, which in turn forces Eskom to raise prices and encourages more people to install solar.
It doesn’t help that some people tap power lines to draw electricity illegally, without paying for it, or that Eskom has suffered years of mismanagement.
In the past five years alone, South Africans installed solar panels representing more than seven gigawatts, or about a tenth of the total installed capacity of 55 gigawatts. Most is privately owned.
Now, unable to beat solar, Eskom is joining solar.
The utility has removed onerous licensing requirements on private installations. It has allowed people to sell power to the grid. And it has tweaked its rates so that customers pay a fixed charge in addition to the cost of any power they consume. Essentially, people pay simply to be connected to the grid, a standard feature in other nations that’s new in South Africa.
Obligatory “but at what cost?”
