{"id":853454,"date":"2026-03-10T12:00:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T10:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=853454"},"modified":"2026-03-10T12:00:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T10:00:15","slug":"major-electricity-pain-for-households-in-south-africa-coming-next-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/853454\/major-electricity-pain-for-households-in-south-africa-coming-next-month\/","title":{"rendered":"Major electricity pain for households in South Africa coming next month"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The National Energy Regulator of South Africa has confirmed Eskom’s massive price increases for 2026, with an almost triple-inflation tariff hike of 8.8% kicking in from 1 April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The energy regulator gave its final approval for the Eskom Retail Tariffs and Structural Adjustment (ERTSA) application, which was submitted in February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The application outlines Eskom’s final pricing for the year. Nersa considered and approved an average tariff increase of 8.76% for Eskom direct customers and 9.01% for municipalities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inflation for the start of the year is around 3.5%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The approved standard tariff increase of 8.76% will be implemented from 1 April 2026 until 31 March 2027 for Eskom direct customers, and the 9.01% increase will be implemented from 1 July 2026 until 30 June 2027 for municipal customers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This difference in percentages is brought about by the differences in implementation dates between Eskom direct customers and municipalities buying from Eskom,” Nersa said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the ERTSA Methodology, Eskom must recover the full allowed revenue within its financial year, which is from April to March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the municipal financial year is from July to June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nersa determines Eskom\u2019s allowed revenue for a defined period through the Multi-Year Price Determination (MYPD) framework. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The annual allowed revenue for each year of the MYPD period is determined based on the projected average energy demand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of this process, Eskom must submit an annual ERTSA application to Nersa for approval, detailing how the approved revenue will be distributed across various customer categories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The approval process took place over a truncated period due to a court order on December 21 requiring Nersa to conduct public consultation on an adjustment to the allowable revenue after the regulator’s calculation errors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This resulted in Eskom being allowed to collect an additional R54.7 billion from customers, split over three years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first tranche of R12 billion is to be paid through higher tariffs in 2026, bringing the average increase up from an initial 5.4% to 8.8%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A further R23 billion will be paid in 2027, with price hikes jumping from the original 6.2% to 8.8%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The balance of R19.7 billion will be recovered through future price applications by Eskom in the next wave of hikes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The consultation on the revised amounts has not resulted in any changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Nersa’s decision has taken into consideration the comments raised by stakeholders, which include concerns about the impact of tariff increases on electricity consumers,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The comments by stakeholders will be published together with the Reasons for Decision document in due course.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Price hikes will be even bigger<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

While Nersa has approved an official tariff increase, consumers can expect to pay even more for electricity in the coming months as other Eskom changes take effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most notably, Eskom\u2019s ERTSA explicitly states that the approved tariffs are before any fixed charges are applied.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

These charges will increase in 2026, meaning households will pay even more than the 9% base price hikes in April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under Eskom\u2019s new Retail Tariff Plan (RTP), approved by Nersa in 2025, the utility was given the green light to apply new time-of-use charges, fixed capacity charges, and network and service charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nersa approved changes to fixed charges on electricity bills, with the caveat that they be introduced over three years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For FY25\/26, the fixed Generation Capacity Charge (GCC) allocation was reduced to 20% of the applied-for level, rising to 30% of the proposed levels in year 2 (FY26\/27) and year 3 (FY27\/28).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the latest ERTSA, Eskom noted that the fixed portion of the GCC is increased from 20% in FY25\/26 to 30% in FY26\/27<\/strong>. The remaining 70% is included and recovered through the energy charge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, service and administration charges for other tariffs are also being phased in over three years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fixed portion of this charge increased from 33.33% in FY25\/26 to 66.66% in FY26\/27. The remaining 33.34% of the service and admin charge is included and recovered through the energy charge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAfter updating the tariffs<\/strong>\u00a0with the applied-for FY26\/27 tariff increases, the rate changes required by Nersa\u2019s RTP decision for FY26\/27 are included,\u201d Eskom said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nersa has confirmed Eskom’s massive price increases for 2026, with an almost triple-inflation tariff hike kicking in from 1 April.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":781237,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[20841,1164,2006],"class_list":["post-853454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-electricity-prices","tag-eskom","tag-nersa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853454","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=853454"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":853467,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853454\/revisions\/853467"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/781237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=853454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=853454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=853454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}