Restructuring South Africa’s electricity supply industry

Abstract

In recent years, South Africa’s electricity supply industry has lurched from fiasco to disaster and back. In January 2012, Eskom held discussions with the Energy Intensive Users Group (EIUG) to persuade them to cut back on their demand for power. The alternative is to revert to rolling blackouts, which will drastically harm an economy already slowed by the lack of energy. How is this possible, in a country which less than a decade ago was seriously considering building a further aluminium smelter at Coega to provide an outlet for excess electricity?