Eskom sold a record-low amount of gigawatt-hours of electricity in 2025/26, even though it made a profit of R30.3-billion, largely thanks to rising electricity tariffs.
According to data from Eskom’s integrated reports, Eskom sold 224 366 GWh of electricity for the financial year ended March 31, 2008. This has dropped by almost 21% by March 2026, when Eskom sold only 178 032 GWh. It is the lowest in at least 18 years. In its latest annual report, it said sales have decreased by 2% every year over the last decade, driven by weak industrial demand, which includes the closure of ferrochrome smelters, the growth of embedded self-generation such as rooftop solar, and power bought directly from private generators.
Despite Eskom selling less power, it has more capacity to generate electricity in 2026 than in 2008, if everything runs smoothly. Eskom’s nominal power station capacity, the maximum electricity its power stations can generate if all of them were generating electricity, rose by 22% from 38 747 MW in 2008 to 47 378 MW in 2026 as units of Eskom’s newest coal power stations, Medupi and Kusile, came online. Eskom says that, for the first time in a decade, it has surplus capacity of around 2 GW to 3 GW.
