For most of the past decade, the suggestion that Eskom might have more electricity available than customers wanted to buy may have sounded unlikely.
Available generation, load-shedding stages and the scramble to bring new capacity online were part of everyday life. Businesses bought generators, households put solar panels on their roofs and industries learned to compensate for a system that could not reliably meet demand.
Eskom’s latest annual results, however, read differently given that history. As recently reported in Energize, plant performance has improved, reliance on expensive diesel generation has fallen substantially and the utility has reported a second consecutive annual profit. Electricity sales, however, fell by 6.2% to 178 TWh in the year to the end of March. Industrial demand recorded the largest decline, down 9.7 TWh, or 22.5%. Eskom estimates that it could have between 2 GW and 3 GW of surplus generation capacity over the next few years.
The decline in sales stems from businesses and households investing heavily in their own generation. Energy efficiency has improved. Larger customers have more procurement options. Those changes won't disappear simply because Eskom's generation fleet is performing better.
Then, of course, there is a strained economy. Falling electricity consumption from energy-intensive industries is considerably less encouraging when viewed as an indication of industrial activity.
Eskom now has to think about both sides of that equation. Among the options it is pursuing are negotiated pricing agreements for energy-intensive customers like smelters, along with additional demand from data centres, electric vehicle charging and flexible loads. Better wheeling arrangements are part of the plan. So, somewhat unexpectedly, does a possible Bitcoin mining pilot. It is quite a list from a utility that, until fairly recently, operated in a country being repeatedly asked to reduce electricity consumption.
Available generation also doesn't mean that electricity is available everywhere it is needed. A new project still needs a grid connection. Transmission and distribution networks require substantial investment, municipal debt remains a serious problem and Eskom plans to invest R343 billion across its businesses over the next five years. This leaves Eskom in an unusual position. It must make enormous, long-term infrastructure investments while the market for its electricity is changing around it.
A large customer today has choices that barely featured in the electricity market a decade ago. It can generate some of its own power, potentially contract with an independent producer, wheel electricity across the network and invest in efficiency to reduce its overall consumption. Increasingly, the electricity customer is making decisions about supply rather than simply receiving it.
Declining sales tell us more than what is happening to Eskom’s revenue. They show how electricity is bought and used in South Africa, as well as industrial activity and the utility's changing role. The next step is for Eskom to keep producing reliably, investing substantially in the networks that support capacity, field customers who have more alternatives and find commercially sensible uses for capacity that may otherwise sit idle.
Nobody who lived through load shedding is likely to complain about having electricity to spare. We may, however, have to get used to the fact that surplus capacity comes with problems of its own.
References
2. Energize. Eskom plans R343bn investment despite sales decline. September 2026.
