Eskom increases have compounded at 11.4% a year since 2011/12. What that does to a three-year budget, and how to fix the price of your daytime power.
For an energy-intensive business in South Africa, electricity is hard to budget for. NERSA-approved Eskom increases compounded at an average of 11.4% a year from 2011/12 to 2025/26, and increases of 8.76% for 2026/27 and 8.83% for 2027/28 are already approved.
At 11.4% a year, an electrical bill can double in just over six years. For a factory where power is a primary input, this raises a direct threat to the bottom line, and absorbing it or passing it on to customers is not a competitive solution.
Many businesses hold back on solar because they look at the build price. The better measure is the levelised cost of energy: the total cost to build and run the plant over its life, divided by every unit it produces. It gives you a real price per kWh for twenty years or more.
With financed or lease-to-own solar, your escalation is pegged so you can plan long-term without being at the mercy of Eskom’s shifting price economics.
A grid-tied solar plant takes a large share of your daytime units off the grid at a price that remains consistent. That gives you a lower blended rate that you can budget for.
On lease-to-own there is no build price to fund.
Sources: NERSA, Eskom retail tariffs 2026/27; Eskom Tariff Book 2026/27.
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