{"id":845086,"date":"2025-11-28T19:13:55","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T17:13:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=845086"},"modified":"2025-11-28T19:14:31","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T17:14:31","slug":"eskom-rakes-in-billions-as-south-africans-cough-up-more-for-electricity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/845086\/eskom-rakes-in-billions-as-south-africans-cough-up-more-for-electricity\/","title":{"rendered":"Eskom rakes in billions as South Africans cough up more for electricity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Eskom\u2019s first-half profit climbed 36% as South Africa\u2019s state-owned power utility stabilises supply and looks ahead to undertake a major transmission expansion and add a renewable-energy division.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Profit increased to R24.3 billion in the six months through 30 September compared with R17.8 billion in the same period last year, it said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eskom has stabilised the grid, increased the reliability of its plants by making overdue repairs and ended years of frequent power cuts that crimped economic growth.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it remains burdened by massive overdue debt it is owed by the country\u2019s municipalities \u2014 which it has previously warned was inhibiting its plans to unbundle the utility into three separate units \u2014 and said that it had received instructions for write-offs totalling R3.6 billion from the National Treasury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Municipal arrears swelled to R105 billion by the end of September from R90.1 billion at the end of March, it said.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis represents a material risk,\u201d Eskom said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s \u201ca key matter that should be resolved before the legal separation of the distribution business, as it impacts the liquidity and solvency as well as the financial sustainability of the business.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Presenting its latest financials to the Portfolio Committee on SOE Performance earlier in November<\/strong><\/a>, Eskom noted that it was beating its revenue targets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Revenue for the year to date, ending 30 September, climbed to R191.3 billion, it showed, which is R1.2 billion higher than the budgeted expectation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The higher revenue is mainly due to the favourable electricity price increases granted by the national energy regulator (NERSA), which amounted to 12.7% this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notably, this trajectory for Eskom\u2019s revenue is set to continue, with NERSA not only granting Eskom far-above-inflation price hikes for 2026 and 2027, but also allowing the utility to recover a further R54 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This would see tariffs increase by close to 9% in both years, bringing a significant windfall for Eskom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The price of electricity has surged 265% over the past decade or so, higher than the 151% inflation. Salaries have not kept pace with rising costs, placing South African households under immense strain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eskom also managed over R6.3 billion in primary energy cost savings thanks to lower costs incurred in coal and from Independent Power Producers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Combined with savings in net finance costs\u2014due to lower interest on debt securities and borrowings\u2014and some municipal compliance in sticking to debt relief plans, Eskom made a healthy profit over the period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

With Bloomberg<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eskom\u2019s first-half profit climbed 36% in the first half of the financial year, as the group looks to a major transmission expansion project in the coming years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":833368,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9874],"tags":[1164],"class_list":["post-845086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-eskom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=845086"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":845087,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845086\/revisions\/845087"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/833368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=845086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=845086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=845086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}