{"id":870820,"date":"2026-08-18T15:58:56","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T13:58:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=870820"},"modified":"2026-08-18T15:58:59","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T13:58:59","slug":"massive-electricity-price-changes-for-south-africa-being-published-this-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/870820\/massive-electricity-price-changes-for-south-africa-being-published-this-week\/","title":{"rendered":"Massive electricity price changes for South Africa being published this week"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>South Africa proposed sweeping changes to its electricity-tariff framework, the biggest overhaul of its pricing policy in almost two decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The plan will be gazetted for public comment on Friday, 21 August.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The plan includes introducing a 10-year pricing forecast, unbundled tariffs, and extending its negotiated pricing agreement program to sectors beyond the mining industry, Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa told reporters in the capital, Pretoria, on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cOngoing electricity sector transformations, including the introduction of market-based mechanisms and increased competition, necessitate a revised policy framework that is aligned with the evolving electricity market,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>South Africa is implementing a series of reforms aimed at ending state power utility Eskom&#8217;s century-old monopoly by splitting it into three separate units and bringing in private suppliers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the same time, it\u2019s redesigning tariff structures so they better reflect the cost of supplying electricity. The nation\u2019s current\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.za\/sites\/default\/files\/gcis_document\/201409\/317411398.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">pricing policy<\/a>\u00a0dates back to 2008.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>South Africa struggled through more than 15 years of power-rationing known locally as load shedding before the situation eased in 2024. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Economic growth in Africa\u2019s largest economy hasn\u2019t exceeded 1% on average for more than a decade, in large part because of the energy deficit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The new policy seeks to strengthen regulations used to determine electricity prices to make them more transparent by separating charges across generation, transmission, distribution and retail, and integrating them into a more consistent framework.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The key proposed changes to the pricing policy announced by Ramokgopa include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Municipalities and Eskom will allow customers to buy from other suppliers, with transparent, cost-reflective and non-discriminatory network charges.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The country\u2019s energy regulator will be required to publish a 10-year price forecast to help businesses and households plan and budget, while providing investors with the ability to compute returns on investment.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>An allocation of free basic energy of between 200-300 kilowatt-hours per month will be made per household, including using alternate energy sources such as microgrids<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A standardised negotiated price agreement will be implemented with clear criteria and oversight by the regulator.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The changes comes as steep increases in electricity costs bring pressure to bear on households and businesses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The National Energy Regulator of South Africa approved an 8.8% tariff increase in July for customers that Eskom supplies directly, and an average 9% increase for those serviced by municipal distributors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa proposed sweeping changes to its electricity-tariff framework, the biggest overhaul of its pricing policy in almost two decades.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":822947,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"failed","_sma_x_autopost_error":"Instagram publishing failed: Instagram returned HTTP 400: Media ID is not available","_sma_x_post_id":"2089713938216718783","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2179831652837234","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9874],"tags":[4427,1164],"class_list":["post-870820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-electricity-price","tag-eskom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870820","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\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=870820"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":870824,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870820\/revisions\/870824"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/822947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=870820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=870820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=870820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}