The story
Prior to the establishment of Eskom, the provision of electricity was dominated by municipalities and private companies. The city of Kimberley was one of the first users of public electricity when it installed electric streetlights in 1882 to reduce crime at night. This was followed by Cape Town in 1895 with the construction of the Graaff Electric Lighting Works to power 775 street lights.
Eskom was founded by the Electricity Act of 1922 which allowed the South African Electricity Control Board to appoint Hendrik Johannes van der Bijl as chairman. The company changed its name by combining the two acronyms in its previous name (ESCOM and EVKOM) in 1987 to become known as Eskom.
The Electricity Act stated that Eskom could only sell electricity at cost and was exempted from tax with the firm initially raising capital through the issuing of debentures, later issuing state-guaranteed loans instead. The coal-fired Congella Power Station in Durban and Salt River Power Station in Cape Town were the first power stations built by Eskom, both completed in mid-1928.
One of Eskom's first power plants was a coal-fired 128 MW station in Witbank, completed in 1935 to provide power to the mining industry. The plant was built and run in partnership with the privately owned Victoria Falls and Transvaal Power Company, which owned a number of other power plants across the country. Thanks to state support, Eskom was able to buy out the Victoria Falls and Transvaal Power Company in 1948 for £14.5 million (roughly equivalent to £2.55 billion in 2017). Following World War 2, South Africa experienced power shortages that led to Eskom negotiating power saving agreements with the mining industry in June 1948.
Logos
Eskom's logo has been an integral symbol of the company since its founding. For a brief period in 1986 Eskom had no logo when it was moving away from the company's original logo of stylised letters spelling "ESC" within a circle to the more contemporary version with a blue shield with a stylised lightning bolt in its centre. The 1987 logo was replaced in 2002 with its current logo that replaced the shield with a circle but otherwise kept the logo as it was.
First expansion period: 1960-1994
From 1960 to 1990 Eskom increased its installed power production capacity from 4,000 MW to 40,000 MW so as to keep up with rapid economic growth in the 1960s and 70s. During the same period, Eskom established a nationwide 400 kV power network. During this period the company built a number of large standardised coal-fired power plants that could produce power at very low cost due to the large economies of scale. These plants were known colloquially as "six-packs" for the 6 large generator units they were designed to accommodate.
In 1974 the company was instructed to start work on Koeberg nuclear power station to both provide power to Cape Town and help facilitate the South African government's nuclear program.
In 1981 Eskom was involved in one of its first large financial scandals when its Assistant Chief Accountant was caught embezzling R8 million from the company (equivalent to roughly R164.37 million in 2018).
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During the 1970s the company controversially sought to increase electrical tariffs to help pay for its large expansion plans. Due to its financial situation, the government appointed Dr. W.J. de Villiers to chair a commission that recommended a number of financial and organisational changes for the company to adopt. This led to the company abandoning its no-profit objective and to raise funds by taking out international loans. The number of Eskom employees was also reduced from 66,000 to 60,000 in the late-1980s.
Post-1994 election period: 1994-2007
Following democratic elections in 1994 and the start of the Mandela government the company changed focus to electrification of previously neglected residential homes and to provide low cost electricity for economic growth. Following the passing of the 1998 Eskom Amendment Act, the government's powers to influence company policy and investment decisions were greatly expanded. Due to the South African government's attempted privatisation of Eskom in the late 1990s during the administration of President Thabo Mbeki, Eskom requests for budget to build new stations were denied. After leaving the presidency, Mbeki would later state in December 2007 that this was an error, resulting in adverse affects for the South African economy.
In December 1998, a white paper prepared by the Department of Minerals and Energy recommended that the government restructure Eskom into separate generation and transmission businesses. Although the report predicted that this action would improve power supply and reliability, it was never enacted.
Load shedding and second expansion: 2007-2023
In February 2006, Eskom announced "load shedding" in the Western Cape province, due to issues experienced by Koeberg Nuclear Power Plant this continued until June 2006. In January 2008, Eskom controversially introduced load shedding nationally (rolling blackouts) based on a rotating schedule, in periods where short supply threatened the integrity of the grid. Demand-side management has focused on encouraging consumers to conserve power during peak periods in order to reduce the incidence of load shedding.
Following the national power shortage in 2007, Eskom embarked on an aggressive electricity production expansion programme during the administration of President Jacob Zuma. The Zuma administration decided to focus expansion efforts on building additional large scale six-pack coal-fired power plants.
In 2016, Eskom stated it intended to pursue a nuclear solution to the country's energy shortage. According to projections from late 2016, the use of nuclear power would provide over 1000 GW of power by 2050. In preparation, the company launched a training program for 100 technicians, engineers and artisans that would certify them as nuclear operators. In January 2018, Eskom's acting chief financial officer stated that the company could not afford a new build, following a 34% drop in interim profits due to declining sales and increasing financing costs. The government stated it would proceed with the plan but more slowly.
In 2017, Eskom was the focus of a major corruption scandal involving the Gupta family and the administration of then President Jacob Zuma.
The National Energy Regulator of South Africa denied an application by Eskom to increase electricity tariffs by a future 19.9% for the financial year 2018/19. The regulator instead granted a 5.2% increase and gave a list of reasons for the refusal to grant higher tariffs that the South African newspaper Business Day stated painted "a picture of inefficiency, inaccurate forecasting and cost overruns" at the power utility. Part of the refusal was the finding that Eskom had 6,000 more employees than needed, costing the company R3.8 billion annually.
In February 2019, shortly after the announcement by government that the company would be broken up, Eskom initiated another round of emergency load shedding. Eskom stated that the 2019 load shedding was initiated due to breakdowns at power stations as well as the depletion of water and diesel resources. Other reasons cited included legacy issues from state capture corruption, coal availability, and that new power plants such as Medupi and Kusile were not yet operational.
Corruption during the Zuma administration had been noted as a major factor in the cost overruns and long delays in completing Medupi and Kusile power plants that had a knock-on effect leading to the 2019 power shortages. The power shortage and related troubles at Eskom was blamed as a significant contributing factor to a 3.2% decline in GDP growth in the first quarter of 2019, prompting fears of a recession in 2019.
In December 2019, President Ramaphosa, Deputy President David Mabuza and Ministers Gwede Mantashe and Pravin Gordhan met with Eskom's board and management to discuss the energy crisis. The president attributed the recent blackouts partly to sabotage at the Tutuka Power Station in Mpumalanga which had caused a loss of 2000 megawatts of electricity, and announced measures to bring an end to load-shedding. Mantashe and Gordhan were tasked with presenting ways to increase electricity capacity to the cabinet, which would include self-generation. Amid the crisis, Jabu Mabuza resigned from his post as chairperson of Eskom's board in January 2020.
Between March and July 2020 the power supply was stable due to reduced demand during the COVID-19 lockdown, but on 12 July a new round of level 2 load shedding began due to the breakdown of generating units.
During the winter of 2023, the country experienced Stage 6 blackouts, shaving a projected 2% off the country's GDP. During the worst period, power cuts lasted 12 hours a day. The company faces theft of materials for resale, sabotage to force repairs to be made at corruptly inflated prices, and assassination attempts which may be motivated by the attempt to replace coal with renewable sources.
Recent developments: 2024 to present
In recent years, under the Cabinets of President Cyril Ramaphosa, and especially under the coalition Third Cabinet (the Government of National Unity/GNU), there have been significant efforts to restructure the energy sector in South Africa. These efforts have been aimed at bringing about an end to Eskom's monopoly, increased competition, and cheaper electricity prices.
In December 2025, Minister of Electricity and Energy Kgosientsho Ramokgopa approved a "revised unbundling strategy" which would split Eskom into separate distribution, generation, renewable energy, and transmission units, under a single holding company. However, the strategy would allow Eskom to retain ownership of the grid, rather than transferring it to an independent transmission system operator (TSO). Naturally, this faced pushback from opposition politicians and the business community.
However, in his State of the Nation address in February 2026, President Cyril Ramaphosa overruled the Minister, confirming that the new TSO would be a fully independent, state-owned company that would directly own and control the transmission assets.
Ramaphosa also removing the Minister's autonomy to oversee the unbundling process by establishing a National Energy Crisis Committee (NECOM) task team - the Eskom Restructuring Task Team (ERTT). The Task Team was instructed to report back with a final roadmap (a Phase I report) for moving the TSO assets out of Eskom.
The ERTT was given an extended 30 June 2026 deadline for its Phase I report. In July that same year, the details of the report were revealed. The ERTT determined that the restructuring was feasible, aligned with international best practice, and could be done without compromising Eskom’s financial sustainability. Furthermore, the report identified several actions that could be taken immediately to enable the restructuring.
As part of the process, there is to be clear delegation of authority from Eskom to the National Transmission Company of South Africa (NTCSA) of all decision-making related to the market, financial, and operational ring-fencing of NTCSA from Eskom. The NTCSA Board is able to appoint its own CEO and senior management, and directors serving on the Eskom board will not be appointed to the NTCSA board. Under the plan, decisions on access to the transmission network are to be relocated to the NTCSA, and eventually to the newly-formed TSO.
In July 2026, despite pushback from both Eskom and ironically his own Minister of Electricity and Energy, President Ramaphosa announced the end of Eskom's monopoly on the South African electricity sector. He endorsed a plan to create an entirely independent, state-owned transmission system operator (TSO) - the entity responsible for managing the transmission of SA's electricity.
The Task Team was given instructions to produce a Phase II report within three months (by November 2026), outlining a detailed implementation plan, with timeframes for completing the restructuring.
From Wikipedia’s article on Eskom, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4