Eskom’s New Frontier: Pay Up Even If You Go Off-Grid

Image: courtesy of Megawatt Park

After years of relentless above-inflation price hikes and chronic load-shedding forced fed-up South Africans to embrace rooftop solar, state-owned power utility Eskom has devised a controversial response: charge customers anyway.

In its recent annual results presentation, a slide explicitly outlined the utility's strategy: “Even where customers self-generate or buy elsewhere, Eskom will retain revenue.” According to Eskom, this will be achieved through network charges, customer wheeling, and restructured tariffs that separate energy usage charges from fixed network recovery costs. While Chief Financial Officer Calib Cassim did not directly address the statement during his address, he noted that improved generation availability had created a 2–3GW surplus capacity the first in over a decade allowing the utility to pursue sales growth rather than power rationing.

To deal with a 6.2% drop in overall sales volumes and a surplus of pre-committed coal under take-or-pay contracts, Eskom opted to offer industrial smelters a concessionary tariff of R0.62 per unit of electricity an 83% discount compared to average residential rates. In addition to these discounted rates and customer wheeling optimizations, the utility revealed it is even running a Bitcoin-mining pilot project to stimulate electricity sales, aiming to stabilize total sales at 178TWh over the next five years.

Residential Solar Under Siege

While heavy industrial users enjoy deep discounts, everyday households face an entirely different reality. Eskom Direct and several municipalities are steadily rolling out restructured tariffs featuring significantly higher fixed network capacity charges. These monthly connection fees hit low-consumption users hardest particularly small suburban homes, less affluent households, and families who rely on solar power.

Eskom Direct customers are currently two years into a three-year "glide path" transition to these higher fixed costs. Currently sitting at 66.6% of the final intended amount, the charges will hit 100% on 1 April 2027. Under the updated structure, customers on the popular Home-power 4 plan will pay a mandatory R670 per month before using a single kilowatt-hour of electricity.

This financial squeeze coincides with ongoing tension between the utility and rooftop solar owners. Earlier, Eskom attempted to force residential users to register their solar installations, warning that a long-standing grace period waiving admin fees (which saved consumers R9,000 to R10,000) would expire on 30 September 2026. Property experts had warned that unregistered systems could trigger municipal fines reaching up to R30,000.

However, following a challenge by the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) and energy analyst Chris Yelland—who highlighted that the Electricity Regulation Act does not govern behind-the-meter installations Eskom backed down. The power utility confirmed it will not fine residential customers or disconnect the electricity supply of households with unregistered solar systems.