East London is South Africa’s most expensive city for prepaid residential electricity, according to an analysis by MyBroadband.
The latest municipal electricity tariff adjustments came into effect on 1 July 2025, following approval by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa).
We compared the new electricity prices of 13 local authorities, including all the major metros and the largest municipalities in all nine provinces, to see how the latest tariffs stack up.
The consumption-based energy charge plays a significant part in the overall bill. Therefore, comparisons are difficult, as households can have widely varying energy consumption habits.
Municipalities may also offer multiple tariff plans for residential customers, including the option of time-of-use charges.
There is also currently no all-encompassing average home electricity consumption. At one point, a widely quoted figure was 900kWh.
However, that seemed to be based on a per-capita calculation of Eskom’s total annual electricity sales divided by the country’s population.
That approach is flawed because Eskom’s most demanding customers — including mines, smelters, and factories — raise the average substantially.
For our comparison, we used Eskom’s average of 656kWh for Homepower 4, its most widely used tariff for residential Eskom Direct customers.
Click here to read the full MyBroadband article.
[Image credit: MyBroadband]
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