South Africa’s most expensive cities for electricity
The City of Cape Town continues to be South Africa’s most expensive city for electricity following the latest annual hikes in municipal tariffs.
On 1 July 2024, municipalities increased their electricity tariffs as Eskom implemented a 12.72% increase in bulk electricity prices.
Municipalities are allowed to request additional increases over and above this amount as long as they provide a cost-of-supply (CoS) study with their applications to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) justifying their changes.
This requirement is stipulated in the Electricity Regulation Act and was reinforced by a ruling from the Pretoria High Court in October 2022 and again in June 2024.
The court ordered Nersa to require that all distributor applications for tariff adjustments be accompanied by CoS studies from the 2024/2025 financial year.
In its latest order, it declared that all tariff applications without these studies were invalid and that municipalities which failed to provide them must keep their tariffs for the 2023/2024 financial year.
While only 66 of the 178 local electricity distributors, primarily consisting of municipalities, had provided CoS studies, Nersa approved all of their applications. Some of the applications were reportedly only considered for four minutes.
Nersa has argued that this is permitted because it has lodged an appeal against the High Court’s latest order.
However, civil rights group Afriforum has argued this could create a massive administrative nightmare for study-less municipalities that might be forced to compensate residents and businesses if the court ruled against Nersa again.
Although many municipalities have simply aligned their increases with Eskom’s tariff hike or implemented lower increases, Rates Watch has highlighted several that have increased their tariffs above Eskom’s rate.
These include the eThekwini (14.00% increase), Nelson Mandela Bay (15.70% increase), Mangaung (13.72% increase), and Msunduzi (17.00% increase) municipalities.
The latter two are among the 112 municipalities that did not provide CoS studies with their applications.
MyBroadband calculated how much the average customer would pay on their monthly electricity bill in 12 municipalities spread across all nine provinces to see how the adjustments have impacted some of the most populated cities and towns.
To account for the different charges for varying blocks of monthly usage under the Incline Block Tariff structure, we assumed the typical consumer used Eskom’s 900kWh monthly average consumption figure.
The Mother (City) of all tariffs
As was the case in our comparison before the latest tariff adjustments, the City of Cape Town had the highest average prepaid and postpaid tariffs — at R4.20 and R3.87 with VAT included — on 900kWh of consumption.
The metro also charges a fixed monthly fee of R281.78 for homes with conventional meters with property valuations over R1 million.
With an assumed 50/50 split between prepaid and postpaid customers, the average monthly bill in Cape Town in the 2024/2025 financial year works out to just about R3,770.
Buffalo City has replaced the City of Tshwane as the second most expensive municipality in our analysis.
While its average tariffs of R3.65 and R3.09 for prepaid and postpaid are lower than those of many municipalities, it started implementing highly controversial fixed tariffs in July 2024.
These included a R432.40 fixed service charge for most prepaid customers and R763.40 fee for most postpaid customers.
The cities of Tshwane and Ekurhuleni ranked as the third and fourth most expensive municipalities.
The implementation of a new fixed capacity charge of R230 for prepaid customers in Johannesburg has moved the metro from the ninth most expensive to the sixth most expensive of the 12 municipalities we considered.
In general, municipalities with larger populations had higher electricity charges than those with fewer residents.
The only exception was Durban’s City of Ethekwini, which had the third-lowest tariff of the 12 municipalities thanks to a flat rate of R3.35 per kWh and no additional fixed charges for most prepaid and postpaid customers.
The table below compares the electricity tariffs of 12 major municipalities in South Africa, ranked from most expensive to cheapest.
| City (municipality) | Prepaid average tariff (per kWh) | Postpaid billed tariff (per kWh) | Fixed monthly charges | Average monthly bill with 900kWh usage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cape Town | R4.20 | R3.87 | R281.78 for most homes valued over R1 million | R3,769.67 |
| East London (Buffalo City) | R3.65 | R3.09 | – R432.40 for prepaid meters – R763.40 for postpaid meters | R3,631.22 |
| Pretoria (Tshwane) | R3.85 | R3.85 | None | R3,461.60 |
| Ekurhuleni | R3.69 | R3.69 | R82.04 for all meters | R3,399.63 |
| Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth) | R3.68 | R3.68 | R73.14 for prepaid and postpaid meters | R3,381.53 |
| Johannesburg | R3.16 | R3.16 | – R230 for prepaid meters – R1,069.93 for postpaid meters | R3,323.26 |
| Nelspruit (Mbombela) | R3.68 | R3.68 | None | R3,308.15 |
| Polokwane | R3.37 | R3.37 | R192.94 for all meters | R3,221.91 |
| Bloemfontein (Mangaung) | R3.52 | R3.52 | None | R3,171.99 |
| Durban (Ethekwini) | R3.35 | R3.35 | None | R3,011.23 |
| Klerksdorp (Matlosana) | R2.53 | R2.53 | R257.62 for prepaid and postpaid meters | R3,010.00 |
| Kimberley (Sol Plaatje) | R3.34 | R3.34 | None | R3,001.00 |
Loading ...