![\"Electricity](\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Electricity-connections-in-South-Africa.jpg\")
<\/a>Electricity connections in South Africa<\/p><\/div>\n
More on\u00a0electricity<\/h3>\n
South Africa\u2019s electricity price shock<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Eskom load shedding already in effect: analyst<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n
A survey by Statistics SA has revealed that\u00a085.3% of households were connected to the electricity grid in 2012, up from 77.1% in 2002.<\/p>\n
Statistics SA said the number of households with legal electricity connections increased 49% from 8.3 million households in 2002, to 12.4 million last year.<\/p>\n
In all, 85.3% of households were connected to the electricity grid last year, up from 77.1% in 2002.<\/p>\n
Statistics SA, however,\u00a0stressed that 11% or (1.45 million) households still lacked\u00a0access to electricity in 2012, while another 3.6% or 578,005 accessed electricity informally or illegally.<\/p>\n
Of\u00a0these 420,000 households, 73% were connected to a source that the households paid for (an informal\u00a0connection) and 12% reported that they were connected to a source for which the household was not\u00a0paying, an illegal connection.<\/p>\n
While 98.2% of electrified households used electricity for lighting, the proportion dropped to 84.5% for\u00a0cooking.<\/p>\n
“This drop is significant as electricity use for lighting is estimated to account for only about 5-10%\u00a0of the energy consumed by poor households, while cooking, and space heating, is estimated to account for\u00a0most of the remainder (90% or more) of the total energy demand,” Stats SA said.<\/p>\n
The report found that, nationally, about 50% of households spent less than 5% of their income on electricity,\u00a0and that about three-quarters (74.9%) spent less than 10%. In total, 8.8% spent more than 20% of their\u00a0income on electricity.<\/p>\n
The percentage of households that rated the quality of electricity supply services they received as \u2018good\u2019 \u00a0declined from 67.4% in 2010 to 61.6% in 2012 while the percentage that rated it as \u2018poor\u2019 increased from 5.7% in 2010 to 9,4% over the same period.<\/p>\n