After enduring several tortuous years of massive disruption to the power supply, South Africa appears to have finally turned a corner, with the electricity network demonstrating much greater stability. But the country now turns to another pervasive electricity challenge: theft.
A year has now passed since the last load-shedding on 15 May 2025. These semi-planned outages, which could extend across more than 12 hours each day, were initiated by troubled utility Eskom during periods when electricity demand was expected to outweigh supply – in order to avoid a total collapse of the energy grid.
Eskom announced on 22 April that supply is set to remain stable throughout the 2026 winter season – a huge improvement from 205 days of load-shedding in 2022 and 335 days in 2023. Eskom claims to have maintained “a consistent energy supply of 98.9% in the last financial year,” compared to 9% two years ago.
“Eskom, and in turn South Africa, now has a stable electricity platform to operate and grow from,” the utility’s chief executive Dan Marokane said in a statement.
The improvement in power availability is mainly the result of much better operational performance at the country’s fleet of coal-fired power stations, which supply more than 70% of grid electricity. The rollout of major wind and solar projects has also helped, along with reduced grid demand as more consumers switch to private solutions.
Illegal connections replace load-shedding risk
However, while the national picture is greatly improved, the situation is much more mixed at a local level, where illegal activities are often a major contributor to continuing blackouts.
Data collected by solar energy company Wetility reveals there were 91,934 grid power outages across the country last year. This translates to an average of six to nine outages each month, which deprive households of power for between 73 and 132 hours.
Unlike load-shedding, in which blackouts were at least announced in advance, these localised outages are primarily unplanned.
One of the major causes is illegal connections, particularly in informal settlements, which can lead to unexpected spikes in demand that force Eskom to switch off supplies. Theft of power cables and vandalism of electricity substations and other infrastructure are exacerbating the situation.
On 13 May, for example, a technician was killed in the Johannesburg district of Crown Mines after accidentally coming into contact with an illegally-connected cable during routine maintenance. The tragedy sparked a local power outage.
“This is a stark reminder that illegal electricity connections are not a victimless crime,” said a spokesperson for the local electricity distribution company City Power.
The prevalence of equipment theft and illegal connections is a major financial drain on Eskom. The utility reported that these “non-technical losses” amounted to 8% of its power supply in the last financial year, resulting in 17.5bn rand ($1.1bn) in lost revenues.
“The excessive usage of electricity resulting from the illegal connections overloads the transformers, causing explosions that result in prolonged unplanned outages that can last for many days and leave all homes, traffic lights and businesses in the area without power,” the utility says.
“Unfortunately, this also negatively affects even those customers who do pay for their electricity consumption. At most, this leaves Eskom with no choice but to implement load reduction for a few hours a day in the affected areas, to protect the transformers and ensure continuous supply of electricity.”
The culprits behind illegal connections are often organised criminal gangs, which have the sophistication to steal and operate advanced electrical equipment. In some cases, gangs act as illegal utility providers or so-called “ghost vendors”, diverting power from Eskom substations and selling electricity to informal settlements.
At the same time, electricity is also stolen directly by the residents of informal settlements, who sometimes resort to crude methods such as throwing cables over Eskom power lines or tampering with meters. A 2023 academic study found such practices had been “normalised” in many communities, with residents claiming to have “no choice” but to steal electricity in the absence of an Eskom supply.
Local disruption
“The shift from scheduled to unscheduled outages has fundamentally changed the nature of the problem, and in many ways, made it worse,” says Ikenna Oguguo, group president and co-founder of Wetility.
“Load-shedding was disruptive, but it was predictable. Businesses could plan around it, households could prepare, and medical facilities could arrange backup power in advance.”
“The current outages arrive without warning and with no certainty of when power will return,” he adds. “What we have now is thousands of localised crises; these are largely invisible at an aggregate level but profoundly felt by those experiencing them.”
Wetility says the average blackout lasts for 12.1 hours, with only 23.6% resolved within two hours.
“A shop owner cannot know whether to send staff home or wait it out. A medical facility cannot plan around equipment that may fail at any moment. Security systems, refrigeration, connectivity, all become unreliable in ways that carry real financial consequences,” says Oguguo.
There are substantial regional differences, according to Wetility’s data. In Gauteng, the country’s industrial heartland, the average power cut lasts for 14 hours. The Eastern Cape gets off lightly by comparison, with average blackouts lasting 6.6 hours.
Oguguo notes that this reflects the vulnerability of ageing distribution infrastructure.
“It follows that the most affected areas tend to be higher-density communities that have outgrown the original capacity of now-ageing networks.”
Bills escalate
Although the power system has undoubtedly become more reliable, households and businesses face a continued escalation in electricity bills. An 8.76% increase in tariffs for the current financial year took effect on 1 April, with a similar rise pencilled in for 2027.
The Energy Intensive Users Group, which lobbies for heavy industry in South Africa, has described the continual price increases as “major factors contributing to some operations shutting down and to low investment levels in the South African market”.
The obvious alternative to grid electricity, for those who can afford the upfront cost, is to install some form of back-up power.
Traditionally, this has come in the form of diesel generators, but there was a massive boom in solar installations during the worst years of load-shedding. Rooftop solar capacity rose by 349% in 2023 alone.
“Although load-shedding has effectively ended, demand for Wetility’s solar and battery systems have more than doubled compared to the same time last year,” Oguguo says, pointing out that constant outages and rising electricity tariffs offer a “compelling explanation” for demand.
The war in the Middle East is the latest crisis that might lead to more demand for solar solutions.
South Africa largely uses domestic energy sources for its power grid. The war has therefore so far had a limited impact on the cost of grid electricity – which in any case is usually only adjusted on an annual basis. In this respect South Africa is in a better position than countries that rely on imported gas or oil products for generating electricity.
The cost of running a diesel generator has spiked, however, due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The South African government, which sets wholesale diesel prices, hiked prices of diesel by a combined total of 12.78 rand ($0.77) in April and May. Pump prices rose to around 32 rand ($1.92) per litre.
“For businesses, utility costs are typically one of the largest operating expenses, so any fuel-driven increase hits the bottom line directly,” says Oguguo.