Eskom to assist government in achieving universal access by 2025

Over 90% of South African households currently have access to electricity, a massive leap from a mere 34% in 1991 when the electrification programme was launched. In partnership with the Department of Energy (DoE), Eskom has been connecting over 200 000 new residential customers to the national grid per annum in the past several years.

This effectively means that, from the dawn of democracy in 1994 until now, a cumulative total of 6.7 million new households have been connected to the grid (based on the Census 2016 statistics). More work still needs to be done to reach the remaining 10% of households that still do not have access to electricity.

To this end, that National Treasury has allocated about R17.4-billion to the DoE for electrification over the next three years. An estimated 590 000 grid and 20 000 non-grid connections to households are expected to be made over the medium term, funded by transfers to implementing municipalities, non-grid service providers and Eskom. Over the medium term, government will transfer R5.9-billion to municipalities and R10.7-billion to Eskom to fund this programme.

As noted by the National Treasury, the cost of connections is expected to increase over the medium term as the integrated national electrification programme shifts to deep rural areas, requiring more expensive hardware and covering larger geographic areas.

Government, through implementing agencies such as Eskom and municipalities, aims to achieve universal access by 2025.

Eskom, together with the government – its shareholder, is working on a lasting solution to address the current operational and financial challenges.