Should be one of the cheapest, as we have lots of coal and labour.
But we dont earn Euros or Dollars.
If you read the article they do purchasing power parity calculations.
The PPP calculation is absurd -- it doesn't make any sense. The price of rice has nothing to do with the
cost of generating electricity and how much people earn has nothing to do with the
cost of generating electricity.
Coal is an international commodity, and the prices equalize internationally, same with most of the equipment. So PPP prices are definitely not correct to use here. Labour is the only differentiating factor and for highly sought-after skills the difference between local and international salaries shrinks relative to the difference in unskilled labour.
If you look at the countries that pay next to nothing for their electricity you will notice that they are heavily subsidized by the governments. And mostly in places you probably don't want to live in.
I am stunned that people think that prices should be based on what we want them to be rather than what it cost to generate. And sure Eskom needs to be more cost effective, but part of the cost of electricity now is related to the under-recovery of previous years that keeps on rolling over-and-over (we spend almost two decades with cheap power without investing in new stations).
Subsidizing electricity or pricing it incorrectly leads to wrong consumer behaviour. If electricity is too cheap the case for installing LEDs, solar water heaters, heat pump water heaters, solar PV is weaker than what they should be.
What we really, really need in South Africa is a way to do time-of-use billing. People on a budget can shift their usage times around and it will make people think twice before spinning up air friers during peak times. It will be a super-efficient way to reduce peak usage and give people options to reduce their bills without necessarily using less overall electricity.
