According to calculations by veteran programmer David Lipschitz (known as @boomerdevs on X), we can thank private solar generation for the bulk of the Eskom capacity recovery in recent years. Yet Eskom intends to punish them.

South Africa's total photovoltaic (PV) capacity surged to nearly 9 gigawatts (GW) in 2024. 2.8 GW of this from private contractors with the state, and 6.1 GW come from private sector contributions (Factories, shopping malls and homes), marking a 12% increase from 2023.

However, Lipschitz made one more key observation - the private sector has managed to deliver this power far more cost-efficiently than Eskom:

“Based on observations, people’s inverters are typically 25% larger than their PV capacity. This means that the 6.1 GW of private PV corresponds to about 7.6 GW of inverter supply. For example, an average system with 6 kW of PV, an 8 kW inverter, and a 30 kilowatt-hour battery bank costs around 250,000 Rand. This translates to approximately 31,250 Rand per kW, or 31 billion Rand per GW. Multiplying this by the total private PV capacity of 7.6 GW suggests that private individuals may have spent around 238 billion Rand on PV systems, inverters, and batteries.

In contrast, Eskom has spent 250 billion Rand on 4.8 GW of capacity, or roughly 52 billion Rand per GW—almost double what private individuals are spending per GW, even when including inverters and batteries.”

Meanwhile, Eskom is hiking costs for solar users by nearly doubling the grid fees. These fixed costs, which one must pay simply to be connected to the grid, are going up by 88% for homeowners, increasing from about R350 to about R700 per month. The charge per KW/h will also rise by 12% as approved by NERSA, while the DA fights them in the courts for the right to raise these rates further in the municipalities they control, and impose a heavy regulatory burden in order to make private power generators conform to the monopoly contract for the energy exchange which they are planning to hand to Johan Rupert’s EXSA. Solar users even face a roughly R50 000 fee to meet Eskom’s requirements for connecting PV systems to the grid.

South Africa’s sunshine is plentiful, even in the Cape, and is more than sufficiently mitigated increasingly large battery banks, the cost of which has halved between 2020 and 2025. Panel and inverter prices have also decreased, though installation costs have risen due to higher labor expenses. Overall, the cost of PV systems has dropped significantly. A system priced at 250,000 Rand could likely be installed for less, but this estimate errs on the higher side for emphasis. Power can be provided 24 hours a day for a price affordable to most of the middle class.

And yet Eskom is charging these private persons higher fees - anywhere from R800 to R5 000 a month - for the electricity they generate, which deters a large number of citizens from making the investment.

Private investment in PV is effectively keeping the grid operational, diverting significant funds that in a normal economy would be going to luxury cars, holidays and home renovations. This is the government’s responsibility, and people are already paying for it. In other countries, those who make these investments get rebates of 20% or 30% to incentivize PV installations. The R238bn spent privately has also supported thousands of jobs in the solar industry.

Yet, despite these contributions, Eskom and local municipalities are ratcheting up fees for solar users to absurd levels. Historical data shows electricity prices have soared from 30c/kW-h in 2008 to R4/kW-hour in 2025, while the cost of generating electricity with PV and batteries has plummeted by 97% over the same period.

It is almost as if the state wants to entirely disincentive electricity generation. This begs the question, why are we paying for this?

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