By: Hanno Labuschagne - MyBroadband

Eskom’s latest tariff hikes will see many direct residential customers paying between R168 and R792 more per month on their electricity bills.

The adjustments — which took effect on 1 April 2024 — will see all Eskom Direct tariffs increase by a minimum of 12.74%.

Eskom Direct’s affordability subsidy charge is increasing by 25.24%, bringing the total increase for key industrial and urban customers to 13.29%.

Eskom is also adjusting the tariffs it charges for electricity sold to local authorities like municipalities by 12.72%. However, these adjustments will only be implemented from 1 June 2024.

The actual new tariff hikes implemented by the municipalities could also be higher than Eskom’s hike, as they may apply for an additional increase based on the cost of providing electricity in their specific operating environments.

Therefore, these customers should wait for announcements from their own municipalities to see their new tariffs.

Eskom Direct customers who want to see how much more they will be paying for electricity can use Eskom’s tariff calculator tools on its Tariffs and Charges web page to determine changes specific to their usage.

These tools are spreadsheets prepopulated with tariff data and equations to quickly calculate a user’s new monthly bills.

Typical direct customer bill R370 more

MyBroadband consulted Eskom’s Schedule of Standard Prices for the 2024/2025 financial year to calculate roughly how much more Eskom Direct customers will pay for electricity from this month in rands.

Most of Eskom’s direct residential customers are on the Homepower 4 tariff, which is for households with single-phase 16kVA (80A) connections.

For the first 600kWh of consumption in a month, the energy charge on this tariff plan is increasing from about R2.50 to R2.82.

Consumption over 600kWh will now be charged at R4.54, instead of R4.03.

All Homepower customers must also pay a fixed network capacity charge. In the case of Homepower 4, this has increased from R6.56 per day to R7.39.

Consequently, the total network capacity cost over 30 days has jumped from R196.80 to R221.70.

Factoring in the changes in both the energy and capacity charges, the bill of Eskom’s average 900kWh user on Homepower 4 will increase by R370.29.

The more conservative Homepower 4 user with only 450kWh of consumption will be paying about R168.50 more.

The table below shows how Eskom’s electricity tariff changes will impact Homepower users with varying consumption levels from April 2024.

Customers on Eskom’s time-of-use Homeflex tariffs will also be paying 12.74% more in energy and fixed charges.

However, their impact will vary greatly depending on consumption habits, as their tariffs change depending on the time of day and year.

For a rough calculation of the increase, we made some assumptions on how much power a user on one of these tariffs would consume at certain times of the day.

The Homeflex tariffs are aimed at those users who can curtail their power consumption during peak demand hours with self-generated electricity — like households with solar power systems.

To be of benefit over a regular fixed Homepower tariff, these homes would have to make minimal use of electricity in the peak morning and evening periods, mostly on weekdays.

The upside is that they can earn credit for excess electricity fed into the grid.

We assumed a Homeflex user would consume 10% of their Eskom-bought electricity during peak hours, 30% in standard hours, and 60% in off-peak hours.

A Homeflex 4 user with half their 900kWh of monthly electricity bought from Eskom would have had a monthly bill of R1,594.25 in the previous financial year during the winter, including network capacity fees but excluding feed-in tariffs.

This year, they will be paying R1,797.36 per month for the same amount of electricity, R203 more.

The table below shows the previous and new bills of Homeflex users with 900kWh of monthly consumption, ignoring any credits for excess electricity feed-in.