Eskom has 2–3 GW of surplus generation while industrial demand is down 22.5% — turning that capacity into paid-for demand is the next reform test.
Eskom says it could have 2–3 GW of surplus generation over the next few years, even as sales volumes fell 6.2% last year and industrial demand dropped 22.5%. That is a very different bottleneck from Stage 6.
Two independent reads land on the same pivot. In a Business Day interview (1 Sep), CEO Dan Marokane puts lost demand at 9.7 TWh (much of it smelters), and talks about wooing Mozal back, growing SAPP exports, and planning for data centres and manufacturing. Daily Maverick (31 Aug) digs under the R30.3bn profit: municipal arrears hit R111.6bn at year-end and R119.9bn by June 2026, and that debt actively blocks distribution corporatisation. Both pieces point at the same hard problem. Keeping the lights on was necessary; turning surplus capacity into competitive, paid-for industrial demand is the next reform test.
That debate is already on SA Policy Space under the Electricity Regulation Amendment Act — Competitive Electricity Market: the legal end of Eskom’s statutory monopoly, NTCSA as system operator, and third-party access so large users can buy from a real market. For the deeper frame, read the textbook chapter on Energy, Electricity, and Infrastructure.