Nersa gazettes Eskom’s proposed 8.83% electricity hike for 2027; public comments open until Oct 2

The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) has published Eskom’s proposed 8.83% electricity price increase for 2027 and invited public comment. Submissions will be accepted until 4pm on 2 October, with a public hearing set for 8 October and a final regulatory decision expected on 26 November.

What the proposal would change and when

If approved, the increase would take effect on 1 April 2027 for customers supplied directly by Eskom. Municipal customers would face an 8.84% increase from 1 July 2027. Nersa’s gazette begins a four-week comment period ahead of the regulator’s November decision.

How prices would move

The application would raise the average price of a unit of electricity from 240.28 cents to 261.50 cents an increase of 21.22 cents per unit.

Examples for households on Homelight tariffs

Eskom’s application included examples for its subsidised Homelight prepaid tariffs. Under the proposal:

• A household on Homelight 20A buying 350 units a month would pay R895 from April 2027, up from R823.
• The same Homelight 20A household buying 150 units a month would pay R384, up from R353.
• 350 units on Homelight 60A would cost R1,138, up from R1,046.

The 50 units of free basic electricity provided by the government to qualifying households were valued at R128 a month on Homelight 20A, according to the application. The Homelight tariffs do not carry the fixed service and capacity charges that apply on Eskom’s Homepower and Homeflex tariffs.

Shift to higher fixed charges

The application completes a three-year shift that moves residential costs out of the per-unit energy price and into fixed charges. Fixed service charges on Homepower and Homeflex rise to the full rand value Eskom proposed in 2025, the last of three annual steps Nersa approved in February that year. As part of that move, service charge rates were increased by a factor of 0.3917 while energy rates were cut by a factor of 0.0366 to compensate.

Eskom said it would collect R355 million from residential service charges next year, up from R261 million, and R3.66 billion from energy rates, down from R3.779 billion. Eskom told Nersa that Homepower and Homeflex customers would see increases at or below the headline figure because the cut to energy rates cancels out the higher fixed charges; the utility’s own testing put the effective increase on Homepower at 8.24%.

Regulatory background and past adjustments

Nersa previously approved an 8.83% figure in February after admitting it had miscalculated the value of Eskom’s generation assets and giving Eskom an additional R23.013 billion to recover that year, lifting approved revenue from R396.425 billion to R419.438 billion.

Earlier regulatory decisions approved Eskom’s revenue for the three years to March 2028, allowing increases of 12.74% in 2025, 5.36% in 2026 and 6.19% in 2027. Eskom claimed Nersa had understated its regulatory asset base and depreciation; Nersa accepted the error and reached a settlement with the utility in July last year on R54 billion without public consultation.

The Pretoria High Court refused to make that settlement an order of court in December after interventions by AfriForum and the Minerals Council SA, and sent the decision back for a fresh determination with public consultation. Nersa ran that process and on 7 February arrived at R54.734 billion. AfriForum returned to court in June to seek a review and to force Nersa to publish its reasons; Nersa published those reasons on 12 July.

Reaction from energy experts

“We really need to have price reductions,”

said Dr Kelvin Kemm, chair of Pretoria nuclear development company Stratek Global.

“I know that they have got to try and balance their books, but you cannot do it every time the sales go down by, let us say, 10%. What they do is, they just increase the price for the rest.”

Independent analyst Dr Dale McKinley criticised the timing of the application while Eskom was reporting strong results.

“It is quite ridiculous, isn’t it? … They need to make more money. They need to squeeze the consumer even further.”

What Nersa can and cannot review

Nersa said its process could not reopen how much revenue Eskom was allowed to make; it could only test whether the utility’s proposed price schedule would collect that money correctly and fairly. Written submissions on the current proposal close at 4pm on 2 October, with the public hearing on 8 October. Nersa is expected to issue its final decision on 26 November.